What Should You Not Do After Rotator Cuff Surgery?

I’m gonna keep this simple. You shouldn’t do things that cause a high level of pain.

In general, our protocols are right after surgery, we allow gentle, active motion like the hand to head, but not higher. We don’t want you to lift your arms. That’s what you won’t want to do right after surgery.

We don’t want heavy lifting. That’s the key. Heavy lifting with your arm out extended, we don’t want you lifting heavy weights. Let’s say you got to pick up the grandbaby or something and you’re kind of not risking injury to the rotator cuff with your elbows down at the side, you don’t stress your rotator cuff that much.

We don’t want to lift any more than a couple of pounds with your arm extended. We don’t want aggressive motion. But in general, as long as you just listen to your body and don’t do things that hurt on a scale of ten more than a 2 or 3, you’re not gonna damage the repair. You’re not gonna mess up the surgery. Everything’s gonna be fine.