Supraspinatus Tendon Strain

[Marcial Lafuente]

Originally Posted by Matthew Woodley

I apparently have a supraspinatus tendon strain. I have seen my GP and this has been diagnosed. I have got PT booked in, but the earliest I could get in is in a weeks time. Are there any exercises or rehabilitation practices I should be carrying out right now?

I only get pain when doing dips and on exercises such as shoulder press and other above head pressing lifts. Do you think it would be okay to continue lower body training like squats, lunges etc..?

I have the same problem.
After reading several articles from Poliquin, I started doing exercises for strenghtening my rotator cuff. Poor man shoulder rotations and similar, increasing weights.
It didn´t work. In the end it was even worse.
Then I read some articles by Eric Cressey about this issue and I followed his advice which is similar to what Garrett Smith has pointed in his post

- Avoid bench pressing. I do different kind of push ups
- Thoracic mobility
- Shoulder dislocations
- Wall slides (I can´t still do a proper one but I have improved quite a lot)
- Some foam roller and tennis ball massage
- A lot of pec stretching
Lying in a bench, with real light dumbells
1/ Arms in a cross and hold the position
2/ Arms in 90º degrees (arm and forearm parallel to the ground) and hold the position

After a month and a half my condition has improved a lot. No pain at all, much better range of movement.
I have no problems with any kind of overhead press
No bench pressing and no dips for the moment

[Garrett Smith]

Nice job, Marcial!

[Steven Low]

Cressey and Robertson always have pretty good advice for building back mobility.

Congrats Marcial... but keep up the work otherwise you can easily relapse.

[Ben Fury]

If you really want to send that supraspinatus some love. Get both of Aaron Mattes' books:
Active Isolated Stretching
Active Isolated Strengthening

Then drop me an email and I'll walk you through building a routine from the exercises in there.

I did a two hour session on a Thursday with a lady scheduled for shoulder surgery on Tuesday and she was able to cancel the surgery. We restored 70 degrees of coronal and 60 degrees of horizontal (axial) shoulder abduction in that one session.

After we stretch, we strengthen! But in the meantime, the big weights are going to have to take a break for a few weeks to let that shoulder heal. Make haste slowly. It's little baby weights shoulder love time.

[Matthew Woodley]

Thanks everyone for all the great advice. I just got my results back from an ultrasound....

INDICATION:
Positive impingement test of right ? rotator cuff.

FINDINGS:

The suprasprinatus, infrasprinatus and subscapularis tendons are normal in appearance, with no tear, calcific tendinosis or tendinopathy detected in these tendons.

The subdeltoid bursa is thickened and shows bunching with abduction, no subdeltoid bursal effusion or joint effusion detected.


OPINION:
Sub acrominal bursitis, otherwise a normal rotator cuff ultrasound. No tear detected. We can administer an ultrasound guided steroid and local anaesthetic injection to relieve symptoms if clinically appropriate.


Since I have no pain, I have decided I will definitely not get the cortisone injection. Yeh so I guess just continue the rehab...

[Garrett Smith]

Good choice.

[Ben Fury]

Originally Posted by Matthew Woodley

The subdeltoid bursa is thickened and shows bunching with abduction, no subdeltoid bursal effusion or joint effusion detected.

Very good news! Most definitely will want to avoid anything that squishes that bursa between your greater tubercle and acromion!! No dips or benching for you anytime soon.

Take it slow and here's to your complete and full recovery!