Shoulder Pains

[Patrick Donnelly]

Recently, I've been doing a lot of jerks and shoulder stands (working up to rings) with decent results in both. However, it caused me to develop some minor shoulder pains which I noticed on the landing phase of the jerk, and also during the release of headstands on the floor (only practiced those ones, so I simply may have been using bad technique). It wasn't anything stretching and warm-up sets wouldn't alleviate.

Yesterday morning (the day after a rest day), I woke up with extreme pain in my right shoulder throughout much of the range of motion. It's no better today. I'm fairly certain that I slept on it funny and damaged it. Yesterday evening, I tried to do some soft-tissue massaging with a tennis ball; it was a difficult position, but I got it. Unfortunately, it didn't help at all (seriously, not at all).

Any hints on what the pain may be and how to alleviate it? (I know, any advice I get here is worth what I pay for it and cannot be considered professional. I am thinking about seeing a doctor if this continues through tomorrow evening though.)

The pain is:

underneath the clavicle and above the humerus (the bursae?) when I:
--- raise my arm in any direction more than 15* above the horizontal plane of the shoulders
--- depress the right scapula/shoulder
--- either flex or internally rotate the left shoulder (still hurts the right)

along and underneath the medial side of the scapula when I:
--- raise the arm to 15* underneath the horizontal plane of the shoulders or higher (meaning going to 15+ adds the pain in the clavicle to it), while either crossing over the front of the torso or back behind the line of the body
--- retract my right scapula

along and underneath the lateral side of the scapula when I:
--- raise the arm to 15* underneath the horizontal plane of the shoulders or higher (meaning going to 15+ adds the pain in the clavicle to it), while infront and to the side of the body (as I move further back to sticking out sideways, the pain slowly shifts to the medial side)

Yeah, so, it hurts.

[Steven Low]

You coming to Gymkana practice tonight? If so, I'll talk with you again there.

[Patrick Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

You coming to Gymkana practice tonight? If so, I'll talk with you again there.

I'll probably come some time around 5:30 (missing the warm-up...).

The knee is doing fine now though. More tennis ball work did it a world of good. I had done wooden dowel massaging on both quads the night before I woke up with the pain there, and it felt "great." I'm wondering if I just happened to miss that one part of the leg, creating some sort of imbalance in the tension.

[Patrick Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Patrick Donnelly

I'll probably come some time around 5:30 (missing the warm-up...).

The knee is doing fine now though. More tennis ball work did it a world of good. I had done wooden dowel massaging on both quads the night before I woke up with the pain there, and it felt "great." I'm wondering if I just happened to miss that one part of the leg, creating some sort of imbalance in the tension.

Er, it's Wednesday, right? Just kidding! I meant 7:30!

[Patrick Donnelly]

Well, every morning is feeling better than the last, though I can tell there is a significant drop from the post-rehab feel the night before. Doing some light shoulder exercises with DB/cable machines really helped warm-up the muscles.

[Robert Allison]

Well, I'm not a doctor and I don't even play one on TV, but late last year I dinged my shoulder and had some rotator cuff impingement issues for a while.

I went to my chiro initially, but I found these exercises from the Diesel Crew website to very helpful in rehabbing the shoulder:

http://www.dieselcrew.com/articles-pdf/shreckfip.pdf

I still work them in to my training for maintenance purposes.

[Patrick Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Robert Allison

Well, I'm not a doctor and I don't even play one on TV, but late last year I dinged my shoulder and had some rotator cuff impingement issues for a while.

I went to my chiro initially, but I found these exercises from the Diesel Crew website to very helpful in rehabbing the shoulder:

http://www.dieselcrew.com/articles-pdf/shreckfip.pdf

I still work them in to my training for maintenance purposes.

That's good stuff. I've been working mostly external rotations, internal rotations, lateral raises and Turkish get-ups. There's no pain now throughout the day, though there's still a bit of stiffness when I wake up.

[Steven Low]

Don't forget to:

~Massage
~Stretch
~Ice after any exercise