Labral Tear

What is a Labral Tear? 

 Remember our golf ball analogy?  (“… think of the shoulder as a golf ball on a tee, or imagine a seal balancing a ball on his nose.  Can you see it?  Big ball, small surface holding it in place.  That’s the “rub” with the shoulder – the design of it gives you tons of motion, but with that, there comes the risk of other problems because sooo many things can go wrong.”)  Well the labrum is a ring of cartilage that deepens the socket and provides a little stability to the joint by deepening it.  Think of it as a washer on the golf tee.  There are varying degrees of labral tears and in fact, you may have one but be asymptomatic.  Most of the time, labral tears are with trauma, as in a dislocation, but can certainly happen with overuse.  For example, baseball pitchers can get labral tears over time from the throwing.  Think of it as trying to pull weeds – the back and forth motion can actually cause “the washer to pull away from the tee.”