Dr. Armin Tehrany, Orthopedic surgeon of Mount Sinai Hospital, speaks about his recommendation for a recovery schedule. Stretching first, strengthening second.

Doctor Tehrany: The earlier you start the physical therapy, the quicker you're gonna get better. In the older days when we used to do open surgery, the pain would be so serious and significant that we would feel that we'd have to wait before starting physical therapy, until the pain died down a little bit. We'd also want to make sure that the wound would heal properly. We wouldn't want the wound to open up so we wouldn't start moving too fast. Now we're doing everything arthroscopically. There's no big wound anymore to worry about. I also like to start the patients two days after surgery because the earlier you start the physical therapy, the quicker you're gonna get better. So, the reason to have physical therapy after surgery is to prevent the creation of too much scar. If we don't do physical therapy on a shoulder patient afterwards, they run the risk of getting very stiff. So, one of the things that we need to make sure of with physical therapy is that the patient can start moving the shoulder and regain their range of motion. After they've regained their motion and done their stretching then we work on strengthening. So stretching first, strengthening second.