When you are able to train your shoulders again I would definitely invest in a Glucosamine/Chondroitin supplement. I take it religiously and I have never had joint problems. I do powerlifting too so alot of stress is placed on my joints
I think just drop shoulder training for awhile, I had shooting pain in my shoulders when working this area as well, I cut direct shoulder training out for almost a year, I also grouped my chest and back togther trying to mimic movements in a sort of ying yang fashion, trying to promote balance after years of mabey being a little press happy.My shoulders actually improved over this time, face pulls from various angles helped improve my side and rear delts. One other thing a sports theripist told me was taking a basketball stand about 5-6 feet away from a wall throw the ball from your chest against the wall aim for a hundred reps every other day for a month you might be surprised
A couple years ago I went from incline pressing 120# dumbbells for sets of ten, to not being able to handle anything more than 25#'ers for a while when my shoulders started hurting a bunch. I looked around many forums for suggestions, most of which are like those above to seek the help of a medical professional…But then I stumbled upon a thread over on the home of Dante and his DC training. Seems Dante has been able to “cure” about 85% of his clients shoulder pain with a simple stretch.
I’m sure you’ve seen it before. Grab a 5’ section of 1 1/2" PVC pipe or a long broom handle…now keeping your arms straight rotate your shoulders up and over your head, lowering the ‘bar’ as far as you can toward your ass. Bring it back to the starting position for one rep. Slowly work your hands closer together for a deeper stretch. If I remember correctly, Dante recommended 50 reps a day. Your shoulders and traps will burn like hell.
I had to break them down into sets of 10 to start, then 20…never got up to 50 in one shot. Didn’t matter though…in 5 days, the pain was all gone and I was back to using the 120’s. After a while, I stopped doing them every day, and now probably only do them once every couple weeks…but I haven’t had any more shoulder pain.
Hope this works for you or some other reader as miraculously as it did for me.
Seems this stretch opens up the AC joint. Give it a shot if you can.
[quote]SeaHag wrote:
A couple years ago I went from incline pressing 120# dumbbells for sets of ten, to not being able to handle anything more than 25#'ers for a while when my shoulders started hurting a bunch. I looked around many forums for suggestions, most of which are like those above to seek the help of a medical professional…But then I stumbled upon a thread over on www.intensemuscle.com …the home of Dante and his DC training. Seems Dante has been able to “cure” about 85% of his clients shoulder pain with a simple stretch.
I’m sure you’ve seen it before. Grab a 5’ section of 1 1/2" PVC pipe or a long broom handle…now keeping your arms straight rotate your shoulders up and over your head, lowering the ‘bar’ as far as you can toward your ass. Bring it back to the starting position for one rep. Slowly work your hands closer together for a deeper stretch. If I remember correctly, Dante recommended 50 reps a day. Your shoulders and traps will burn like hell. I had to break them down into sets of 10 to start, then 20…never got up to 50 in one shot. Didn’t matter though…in 5 days, the pain was all gone and I was back to using the 120’s. After a while, I stopped doing them every day, and now probably only do them once every couple weeks…but I haven’t had any more shoulder pain.
Hope this works for you or some other reader as miraculously as it did for me.
Seems this stretch opens up the AC joint. Give it a shot if you can.[/quote]
Yeah man thanks, i had heard of them but your story gives me more confidence haha. I did some today and will continue to do so for a couple of weeks. Thanks
Yes I think ART is a very good idea.
I feel it might be a good idea to tell you more about my situation. I had shoulder pain for years and did the above to keep training. I finally went to the doc and the MRI showed a serious tear in the anterior infraspinatous tendon. Before I had surgery I benched 225 for 19 reps. Not as strong as I’ve been but not that bad.
I finally couldn’t take the pain any longer and had surgery. Well my tendon was almost tore off of the bone and one of the worst my doc had seen. He didn’t know how I could function with it being that bad. My humerous was actually hanging down slightly out of socket.
I would not have had the surgery but I could not handle everyday normal life tasks without serious pain.
Hope the shoulder feels better.
Bill
Well, since you asked, I’ll give you what I’ve got. However, it seems most of what I would say has been said already.
What aggravates my shoulder:
Barbell benching (incline to a lesser degree)
DB benching
sleeping on my side
I don’t have immediate pain from the benching, but it is realized later in an accumulative fashion. The sleeping part is immediate, as soon as I wake up.
What helps/has helped my shoulder:
Broomstick stretches
Eliminating ALL flat and incline benching (except close grip with a shoulder width grip)
My shoulder health increases greatly after only a few weeks of no benching. The broomstick stretches help me mostly to stretch tight pecs as I sit at a computer all day with my arms and shoulders forward.
I know you said you were thinking of eliminating shoulder work, but I would consider eliminating horizontal pressing (at least on a bench). Dips may be a decent sub if it feels OK.
Maybe in the short term you could eliminate the lifts that aggravate you shoulders, but in my experience, just dropping the benching SAVED my shoulder. I continued to do overhead pressing. No BTN as I think in my younger years this is where I initially jacked it up, (along with benching 3 days a week like any self-respecting noob) and I’ve noticed high incline OHP instead of vertical is much easier on the joint and for me, I “feel” it much better.
Hope this helps, but it seems like everybody’s covered it pretty well.
Good luck!