Post: #1

Hi guys

I've got some shoulder impingement. Internally rotating the shoulder is painful, and presses are doable, but very painful mid-way through the movement (less so in the bottom or top).

Right now my plan is to pop ibuprofen and do mild rehab exercises and focus on external rotation exercises, and take the time to work on mobility and cardio while I recover.

Any other tips?

Disappointing... I've never been stronger.

Post: #2

(01-14-2015 12:15 PM)ElJefe Wrote:  Hi guys

I've got some shoulder impingement. Internally rotating the shoulder is painful, and presses are doable, but very painful mid-way through the movement (less so in the bottom or top).

Right now my plan is to pop ibuprofen and do mild rehab exercises and focus on external rotation exercises, and take the time to work on mobility and cardio while I recover.

Any other tips?

Disappointing... I've never been stronger.

Deep tissue massage with a golf ball? Hurts like hell, and I've never had tendinitis in my shoulder, but I have suffered badly from it in my elbows. Working the muscles over a golf/cricket/Lacrosse ball has always been a huge help.

Post: #3

I had a similar issue a few years back. I thought it was a rotator cuff, but my orthopedists said it was a bicep tendon. I rehabbed it through body weight exercises on gymnasts rings. My pain was where the red arrow is.

   


There is a guy by the name of John Welbourn that swore by it so I tried it. Within about 6 weeks I was pain free.

I would do various ring pushups, and isometric holds for thirty seconds. The isometric holds helped me strengthen up, and stabilize all of the muscles in my shoulder girdle and upper back.
   

Good luck.

Post: #4

Can you do a shoulder dislocation?

Post: #5

(01-15-2015 07:23 AM)Hades Wrote:  Can you do a shoulder dislocation?

OP, if you can do shoulder dislocations, then you should do them every day.

When I first started getting into lifting, my shoulders were killing me. It was painful doing low bar squats.

I started adding shoulder dislocations to my daily regimen and after a month of doing them every day, my shoulder health improved. Just go to Lowe's or Home Depot and get yourself a PVC pipe.

Shoulder pain is never a good thing and is usually a sign of something bad.

Do you do dumbbell exercises with your shoulders as well? If so, you may be doing way too much weight. Lighten up the load and go for higher reps with your dumbbell exercises. Your shoulders will thank you. You dont need to worry about going hard with dumbbells if you are doing overhead press for strength.

Also, how is your posture? my problem was that I had slight kyphotic (nothing compared to that hyperlink) posture. You may look completely normal, as was the case for me, but you have slight internal rotation of the shoulders that is barely noticeable but you feel it in the gym. Doing shoulder dislocations (and facepulls) will help correct this over time. It will help you open up your chest and have your shoulders sit back where they belong.

So you do OHP, what other shoulder exercises are you doing? Consider adding facepulls to you workout regimen as an accessory exercise. A lot of people neglect their rear delts. This will help with overall shoulder health as well.

Post: #6

after it heals you are going to have to do some work for your external rotators

Post: #7

ElJefe, please take a look at the stick exercise. It is extremely effective at healing shoulder and specifically rotator cuff injuries.





I recommended this on the forum before:

(03-28-2014 08:58 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  I want to emphasize once again the immense benefits of the rotator cuff stick exercise for general shoulder health and for both healing and preventing shoulder injuries.

I used to get more or less serious rotator cuff tweaks all the time from bench pressing and other movements. Now I never do and it's entirely because of this exercise.

I do sets of 50 of these -- yeah it sounds like a lot but you want to always be coming in a little with your grip as the set progresses. However, you don't need to start with 50. Do these religiously and your shoulders and rotators cuffs will be thanking you every day.

Here is a great thread that describes the exercise in detail, posted by the guy who basically invented it (the great Dante):

http://www.intensemuscle.com/showthread.php?t=6997

And this is the absolute best video demo on how it's done. I posted it before but I'm doing it again because this demo is so good:

It helped another guy on the forum who followed my suggestion heal a significant rotator cuff injury:

(04-20-2014 11:50 AM)Blackwell Wrote:  Lizard - The stick exercise has made a dramatic difference to my shoulder pain and my ability to battle it whilst training.

I'm currently doing a set of 25, taking 30 seconds and then another 25. I'm slowly edging my hands closer together maybe every 2-3 days.

Every week the pain lessens and my mobility improves, I can finally flat and incline bench again. It is liberating to actually have close to full functionality and be able to embrace my physicality again. I'm getting back to the point I was at before the pain crippled me. Muscle memory is a beautiful thing. I will continue pushing with the stick exercise trying to get it to a straight 50 set and all of this will hopefully allow me to peak in time for summer. I got a lot of pick up rivalries that need taken care of.

Huge thanks to you man, seriously just one little thing like this can make such a difference. You can't fathom how appreciative I am, my physicality is everything to me.

The ankle is ok, I have implemented a couple of the rehab and prevention exercises you suggested into my leg routine and the braces I bought are excellent and I do think they will prevent further rolls. However this last sprain is still not quite healed yet, I took a few weeks off but I played the other for maybe 3 hours of on off physical pick up and it swelled a little that evening, I iced, rested and watch the playoffs and it feels a little better today. It's a delicate joint I know that so I will probably just hit the weights hard this week and rest it until the end of the week.

Post: #8

If you're having problems with barbell presses, I recommend trying dumbbells instead. The free rotation of your wrists - contrary to the locked angles with barbells - can take the strain off the joints.

I've had minor wrist, elbow and shoulder injuries several times since my early 30s, and switching to dumbbell presses - sometimes for both chest and shoulder exercises, as well as no barbell curls for biceps during some of the injuries - allowed me to keep working out with heavy weights most of the time.
I've actually stopped doing barbell shoulder presses entirely, and recently also recently ditched barbell curls (still use an ez curl bar occasionally, more or less allows the necessary wrist rotation). My shoulder and elbow joints can't take quite the same strain anymore as when I was younger.

Post: #9

Thanks for the tips guys.

For a couple of reasons I haven't really been working out the past two weeks.

Until yesterday, i was taking ibuprofen and I had reached a stage where I could lift my elbow above my right shoulder and it wasn't painful, so that was clear progress.

I experimented yesterday with various exercises. Decline Hammer-Strength Chest Presses, certain variations of push-ups and weighted dips were very doable. I tried to give cable flys a shot. Absolute no-go. EZ-Bar Preacher Curls were also in fact somewhat painful.

I did the stick exercise. That was hard to do. I also did band pull-aparts.

So, for now I think I should continue with ibuprofen and the shoulder-easy exercises and just take advantage of the situation to focus more on core and lower body.

Post: #10

ElJefe, the key with the stick exercise is to work it gradually.

The main thing to know is this: the wider you grip the stick, the easier it is to do. So get a stick that is long enough that you can grip it really wide. That won't be so hard at all. Then just do relaxed reps with that wide grip -- the idea is not to strain, just do it with great form just like in Sukie's video. Then once you're warmed up with 5, 10 or 15 of these wide reps, try moving your grip in just a little and do some reps that way. And so on.

If you do 50 reps daily this way, always starting as wide as you need to be comfortable, and working inward ever so slightly, you will see great results in working through any scar tissue you have in your rotator cuff, healing your injury, and increasing your flexibility in the process.

Post: #11

I believe I have something similar, albeit much less severe. I got it this past weekend, I think from pushing myself on swinging across monkey bars, though I did lots of other shoulder work that day too. Even though I can do several pullups (~10 max perhaps), swinging on monkey bars was a challenge, prior to the injury.

I feel a pain in the front left quadrant of my left shoulder, about two inches below the top of my shoulder. I can do pushups without issue, but it's the fine motor movements that are problematic - turning a steering wheel is particularly problematic. I did an intense pilates class a day after the shoulder tweak, and that didnt aggravate it any (I did abstain from an overhead press in the pilates class). Taking off my shirt overhead was also painful, though less so now.

Same recommendations as for eljefe? I have done shoulder dislocations before but not routinely. I will incorporate them now. I did some rotator cuff work occasionally - principally the cuban press.

Post: #12

I think you should take it easy right away. I continued to do heavy lifting after the initial pain and seriously regret that now.

This will probably take a few more weeks to heal, and it's already been a month.