The shoulder joint is often a ected by osteoarthritis, which may be induced by metabolism, inflammation or repeated mechanical overloading affecting 8.5% of the US population in any joint. Due to the high cost for the health-care in the worldwide, it is necessary to go in depth in the comprehension and prevention of that disease. The study uses the mechanical contributions to that pathology with a numerical contact model of the glenohumeral joint. The goal is to quantify the contact pressure and its distribution on the healthy cartilage layers for the abduction motion using the nite element method (FEM). The 3-D model is built up from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of a healthy shoulder, including the scapula, humerus and clavicle as well as articular cartilages. We simulated the abduction for two physiological forces in the glenohumeral joint: the first between centers of the humeral head and glenoid cartilage with the result of maximum contact pressure of 7.3 MPa in 90º of abduction (parallelism with experimental data). Thus, for the same modulus of that force but with the direction variable (closer to reality), we simulated the first 50º of abduction and after this it appears a loosening of the humeral head to the glenoid cavity. To conclude, we could simulate the abduction movement,the translation and the contact pressure in the glenohumeral joint. However, it was assumed that the muscles should be implement to the model to achieve the actual conditions as well as find a proper way to include the labrum in the scapular cartilage.