The shoulder is one of the most sophisticated and complicated joints of the body:

• It has the greatest range of motion of any joint in the body with complete global movement allowing you to position the hand anywhere in space.
• The coordinated activity of numerous muscles working together in set patterns is required to produce this motion
• It is made up of FOUR joints and FIVE linked bone groups which are related and work together.
• To allow so much movement the joints need to be ‘free’ to move, therefore the shoulder should be ‘unstable’ compared to other joints of the body; However a series of complex ligaments and muscle keep it in joint.

Because the shoulder is such a unique joint it is also prone to particular problems. In fact it would be more correct to call it the SHOULDER COMPLEX. This section will hopefully explain some of the terminology you might hear and relate this to disorders of the shoulder.