At a glance

A relaxed, gravity driven swing of the arm that keeps a painful shoulder moving without asking any of the sore structures to work. The looser you let the arm hang, the better it does its job.

What it works

Primary muscles

None by design: gravity and body sway move the arm, not muscle

Also involved

Rotator cuff, kept gently moving without having to contract
Upper trapezius, which relaxes once your weight is supported through the other arm

Equipment: A table or the back of a sturdy chair to lean on. A light hand weight is optional and belongs to a later stage.

How to do it

1
Stand beside a table and lean forward, taking your weight through your good arm on the table top. Let the sore arm hang straight down, clear of your body.
2
Check that the arm is genuinely hanging. Give it a small shake: it should feel heavy and loose, like a rope, not held.
3
Shift your weight through your feet and hips so your body sways gently. The arm swings forward and back because your body moved, not because you swung it.
4
Keep the swings small, ten to fifteen centimetres to begin with, and keep pain at or below a two out of ten.
5
After about thirty seconds of forward and back, change to side to side, then to small circles in each direction.
6
Come back up slowly, supporting the arm with your other hand as you return to standing.

How much to do

2 to 3 minutes, split between forward and back, side to side, and small circles

4 to 5 short bouts spread through the day

In the painful stage, little and often beats one long session. Ten minutes of warmth beforehand, a hot shower or a heat pack, makes the capsule more compliant and the session more comfortable.

Stop and get assessed if

Stop and get assessed if you cannot actively lift the arm at all, particularly after a fall, or if night pain is steadily worsening rather than settling. If you have had shoulder surgery, follow your surgeon's protocol for when to start and how far to swing, since that timeline is set by the repair rather than by how the shoulder feels.

Common mistakes

Actively swinging the arm with your shoulder muscles: The moment the shoulder works, this stops being a pendulum and becomes a movement the irritable joint has to control. Move your hips and let the arm follow, and if you cannot tell whether the arm is relaxed, it probably is not.
Making the circles bigger to feel like you have achieved something: Range is not what this exercise is for. In the painful phase the goal is movement that does not provoke the capsule, and a big swing does provoke it. Larger circles belong to a later stage.
Adding a hand weight early on: A weight increases the pull on the joint and on everything holding the arm on, which is exactly what an inflamed capsule reacts to. It is an addition for once pain has settled, not a way to make the early version work harder.
Gripping the table hard or holding your breath: Tension travels. If your hand, jaw and neck are braced, the shoulder is braced too, and a braced shoulder is not a hanging one.
Judging the session only by how it feels while you are doing it: The useful measure is the two hours afterwards. If the shoulder aches for more than a couple of hours once you have finished, it was too much for the stage you are in, so shorten the bout rather than abandoning it.

Making it harder

Widen the swings and circles gradually, but only once sessions stop leaving the shoulder aching afterwards.
Once the painful stage has passed and stiffness rather than pain is the limit, hold a light weight of one to two kilograms to add gentle traction through the joint.
Move on to supported range work such as table slides and the wall slide, which start asking the shoulder towards its available range rather than simply keeping it loose.

Making it easier

If leaning over a table bothers your back, sit on a chair and hinge forward from the hips instead, letting the arm hang between your knees.
If even a small swing hurts, cut the movement to a few centimetres and the bout to thirty seconds. A small swing that provokes nothing is worth more than a big one that flares the shoulder for the rest of the day.

Shoulder Pendulum