thank you sput and susan for all your feedback on this. It has been a tremendous help. I guess there just is no shortcut here. just printed out cressey’;s 3 part series on the shoulder saver, and your rec’s.
will put these into work, and soon i’ll be benching and doing sghp again.
My problem was quite severe but at the same time always seemed less critical. I wasn’t training hard at the time that it developed (due to being forced out of action with another issue) and getting back into training has been part of the cure. It was kind of OK with me having to build up slowly.
My husband on the other hand was training very hard and was suddenly put right out of action. For all his adult life he’s trained his chest without fail. It’s been several months now and his pullups are now better than ever - he’s close to his target of 20 reps and his form is about the best I’ve seen. But STILL he can’t work his chest other than tentatively working on pushups. There are numerous things he can’t yet do and he doesn’t like feeling ‘fragile’. It’s hit him hard - training has always been so important to him.
If you do feel you like at any point in the future that you’d like to run things by him just post here - I’ll get notification of any updates to the thread. And I can give you his email address. He’s researched things indepth (he’s a meticulous researcher!! LOL) and probably has more in common with you (in terms of how to deal with it) than I do.
Good luck with it - and you may well get back to full function very quickly. Every case is different!!
I have just been diagnosed with calcific tendonitis of the infra- and supraspinatus (2,4 cm or almost 1 inch in size). The pain and severe mobility issues arose from one day to the other. At this stage I can hardly move my left arm making even obvious things like getting dressed, riding a bicycle etc quite difficult and painful. Training any of the basic lifts like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, pull ups … is completely out of the question. At least for now and not sure about the longer term consequences and how this will affect my training in the future.
I’d be keen to hear from anyone that has been in a similar position and know what was your experience with treatment, when / how you went back to strength training and how it affected your training. Any help or tips are really appreciated !
@Dom: Do you feel better on a foam roller when moving your shoulder around? The reason I’m asking is because I was slightly twisted once (as in my spine wasn’t neutral, and I started making a real conscious effort to get my spine neutral, or pull my belly really tight, as tight as I could, and that little bit I was off was instantly fixed and my shoulder was fine). Of course your case may be different, but I personally feel that was the root cause of my issue when I had it.
My shoulders actually hurt more than ever now since i started the PT. Now, they hurt all the time. Forget about sleeping on my right side.
many of the exercises from cressey are what ive been doing a little of. My pt actually had me doing the same ones. Anyway, i’m gettin a little tired and kinda pissed off at this whole thing. so,
i’m planning a program that will not work on chest. Probably gonna do a push, pull, legs type thing. and throw in the exercises to build up the mid back and upper lats. that’s what i was told i need to do.
@sput- i was on the foam roller once in the pt’s office. honestly, I hated it. It was so uncomfortable. She had it vertical on the spine. I think I tightend every muscle in my back to have less pressure on the roller… 
@susan. If you could be so kind as to ask your husband what he is doing for shoulders would be lovely. I plan on doing shoulders for my push sessions.
There’s a guy in my gym( a very, very, very strong guy- looks like “the hulk”) that was doing deads and rack deads, very heavy- up to 7 plates for reps- a few times a week for a long time. I asked him why he wasnt doing any bench. He said he hurt his shoulder. Now it’s a year later, and he’s doin bench. I asked him, how long did it take?
He answered, “til it got better”. I guess that’s the bottom line.
If your shoulders hurt that much, you shouldn’t be exercising them, and I wouldn’t wait for the MRI. Get it and your X-Rays now. Structural damage can not be overcome if you plan to always workout, and push limits. The only thing your doing by exercising is getting older and making it take longer to heal.
If surgery would not help, then you need COMPLETE rest. Your PT shouldn’t be giving you anything other than ice,heat, stim, light massage, maybe some stretching if it doesn’t hurt.
Try some anti-inflammatory foods, I don’t know your workout schedule but if you’ve been training hard for a while stop for a week. Get some sleep, limit partying and let your body recover. Always walk, move and keep your posture.
If your bicep tendon is truly stressed you really need to chill out, you don’t want to pop that, that’s a long recovery.
@air. thanks for the post.i recently had 2 , 4-5 day rests. honestly, i was getting better, little by little. it got worse when i started the pt.
i just started a new program of pull, push, legs. on the push its just military… this doesnt hurt at all, and on the other days, i include some of the back/lat work with bands, etc.
funniest thing is that my biggest pain is the bicep tendon. the rotator cuff wasnt bothering me much at all… till now.
@sput, and susan. my biggest pin is the bicep tendon. when you guys, and husband had your problems, where was the pain…mostly?
@dom: I didn’t have a real severe case of it but, my biceps tendon was tighter on my left side than right. I was excessively weak in my left arm, compared to my right, while doing ER pulling a band across my body (as in the band is attached to the rack on the other side of my right shoulder and I pulled it across my body with my left hand. I’m talking 4 reps with the lightest band I could find. I felt a tightness, but no pain. My left arm strength with a shoulder horn was pathetic compared to my right too. I noticed that my thoracic spine would get out of alignment a lot too, which a chiropractor that I really trusted told me that many shoulder problems start in the neck.
I added neck work. Neck bridges are awesome. 100 band pull a parts as my left rhomboid was weak. Then ER work with a band (pulling across the body and pulling up from 90 degrees - shoulder level to about ear height, just focusing on perfect position and making the muscles tired. I would take light dumbbells - 5 lbs seemed to work well and lay on the ground with my humorous at 90 degrees and then rotate them down to the floor - not to strengthen but to stretch, and just hangout until I was lose. I learned how to adjust my spine too. I’m not the kind of guy that believes in adding anything unless you can justify results with it, as in you test it yourself and not just read it somewhere and accept it. I really do feel that those things helped me with my case.
In my opinion what caused mine was 2 things. One being in a head on car accident as a kid, I went to a chiropractor for years with neck pain and stiff necks growing up a lot, which seemed to get better once I started training. Two, I ruptured my biceps tendon on my ride side when I was 19 and as a result until Kelly Starrett came along spent 15 years with my right arm not straightening. It’s almost straight now, I mean slightly off but better than ever. As a result I lost IR in my left shoulder from compensating from my right arm not straightening. I fixed it with Kelly Starrett’s favorite IR fix, his barbell smash.
I’ve never heard anyone say this but a cue I made up was long spine, as in stand up as straight as you can so you come up on your tippy toes then back down. This seemed to help when I had a body that honestly wasn’t 100% symmetrical.
I hope this helps and you get better soon. Keep listening to your body, it doesn’t lie.
For the tendons, i used something called super cissus. It’s a natural ingredient so results weren’t overnight but it seemed to heal faster then without.
@sput. wow, that’s something. I read it 2 and 3 times. very inspiring and informational!! THANKS
so, here’s the latest.
last session with pt-- she said i should go get an MRI, and maybe a shot.
I have stopped doing any kind of bench, and I’m feelin better.
Not ready for bench yet, but, much better.
im doing-- pull, push, legs, arms, rest, pull, push, legs, rest-- repeat
i am also doing some of the back strengthening exercises with a lite band in between sets
the push days are just military after some prepump shoulder work with a light band
Will post again after I see doc again
@Dom: Good luck. Sounds like you’re taking a good approach. Results don’t lie. Just keep trying things that don’t hurt and eventually you have to figure out what works for you.
[quote]domcib wrote:
@sput, and susan. my biggest pin is the bicep tendon. when you guys, and husband had your problems, where was the pain…mostly?[/quote]
Sorry - just spotted this.
Mine when at it’s worse was an EXTREMELY sharp pain at the front of my shoulder. But certainly pain running down maybe my biceps tendon too - I do remember saying about my bicep tendon to the physio.
Initially if I moved the wrong way - so something like slipping and reacting to get my balance and I’d get excruciating pain that’d gradually fade over around 10 seconds. On a scale of one to ten it was a ten. I had virtually no pain free ROM at all.
Now I’d say most of what I feel is discomfort in my biceps tendon and anterior deltoid. Sometimes a bit of discomfort around my shoulder blade.
I just asked my husband and he says the same thing, but despite the key features being the same our problems presented very differently.
Pressing, lifting arm overhead, lifting arm out to the side aggravates most with both of us.
There’s also a muscle called coracobrachialis which I think may be more of a problem than the bicep - it’s hard to tell them apart by feel.
My pre/post workout routine now is to get a lacrose ball dug into the pec minor, pec major, anterior deltoid, biceps and coracobrachialis. Then stand facing the corner of a room, arms lifted slightly above shoulders and stretched out to the side - then place a hand on each wall and push your body into the corner. This stretches out the tight bits. But I think there’s a process you have to work through and you might not be ready for that yet.
I also noticed that I’d sleep on my bad shoulder with my shoulder kind of folded under me and arms tucked up tight with fists under chin(if that makes sense). A huge part of correcting this is learning to sleep on that side with my weight resting on the outside of my arm/shoulder rather than ‘folding’ it, and with less bend at the elbows.