 Hi, I am Dr. Sushal Shantakumar. I am a consultant orthopedic surgeon in Manipal Hospital, Bangalore who specializes in shoulder surgeries and shoulder injuries. Major injuries are fractures. Although this is comparatively rare compared to other soft tissue and ligament ruptures, they do happen. The bones are typically very strong and they can handle a surprising amount of trauma. The muscles and tissues work in tandem to prevent injuries to the bone. However, if they do occur, the commonest ones are fractures of the clavicle or what is known as the collar bone. And sometimes you get hairline fractures of the humerus which are known as avulsion fractures. These typically need to be treated with immobilization and sometimes may even require surgery. So let's talk about the minor injuries which are far more common than the major injuries. So let me start with the most common is minor injury which is known as the sprains. Sprains typically involve the ligaments. So if the upper arm or your humerus is pulled or yanked hard enough with such force that it doesn't cause dislocation but hard enough to cause pain, you can end up causing ligament sprains. These are graded into three different categories grade 1, 2 and 3 depending upon the damage. So generally what happens are these sprains take a longer time to heal than typically frank dislocations or muscle injuries. So you might have to go through a typical physiotherapy and rehab protocol to recover your complete strength. Then you have the strains. Strains typically involve the rotator cuff or the muscles. Overworking, overstretching or overuse of the shoulder muscles may lead to muscle strains. These are typically minor tears which do not require surgeries treated by rest, eyes and of course some analgesics and in some cases may even require physiotherapy. So next we have inflammation. Sometimes repeated motion of the shoulder or sleeping in a bad position or undue wrong form while performing gym or certain activities can cause inflammation. This can cause inflammation in the muscles and tendons. Most commonly the most commonly inflamed tendon is the biceps tendon and this can cause nagging pain over a period of weeks to months. This is again typically treated by rest, eyes and analgesics. Sometimes your doctor may actually give you a steroid injection. It's a local cortisol injection injected to bring down the inflammation. Typically these are not serious and can be treated with physiotherapy. Then you have the bone spurs or what we call impingement and some people refer to as a swimmer's shoulder. Again repeated emotion such as throwing a ball or pitchers or volleyball can cause spurs or small bony growths to develop in the bone which can rub onto the rotator cuff and then gradually cause friction leading to tears. So this again requires a typical elongated rehab protocol where we have to strengthen individual rotator cuff muscles and these can be diagnosed on MRIs or ultrasound scans. If picked up early this can be treated easily and can prevent long term complications such as rotator cuff tears. Finally we have muscular imbalances. What happens is sometimes the patients complain of pain on the back side you know the shoulder blade or what we call the scapula. These are commonly missed by most of the doctors and physiotherapists. So there is a muscle imbalance which leads to constant nagging pain on the back of your shoulder. We refer to this condition as scapula dyskinesia or aekinesia. Although nothing is told or inflamed in this condition these are far more difficult to treat and you need a personalized or tailor made physiotherapy program. So these were the common injuries which affect the shoulder while sports. Being aware of these common sports related shoulder injuries and knowing their symptoms may encourage you to seek medical treatment sooner. Early treatment intervention could result in better outcome and in fact earlier return to sports. Awareness of these injuries and how they occur is the first step in prevention. Don't let yourself or your colleagues or your friends get sidelined for this reason. Proper form, strengthening and stretching measurements and safety measures can help you stay healthy and give you a long career. So this was Dr. Sushal giving you a brief overview of how to take care of your shoulder when you play sports. For more queries you can reach out to me. I'm a consultant shoulder surgeon in Manipal hospitals. We'll be happy to help you in any which way. Thank you very much.