Shoulder Issues

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

So I’m sparring with my buddy today, traditional boxing. I just staggered him with a straight left, so I’ve got a big fuckin’ hardon.

So I go to follow with a 1-2, and as I come in with the left (southpaw), he comes in with a straight right, his arm hits my arm… and POP my shoulder flies out. Took me a while to get it back in.

So my question is, who’s got shoulder issues? My shoulder has been fucked up for a long time, and this is the first time it popped out, although it nearly did a couple times before.

How do you remedy them? Any rotator cuff exercises to help? How’s it worked out? I like keeping my damn arm on my body… that shit hurt, and I know once you do it once, you’re more susceptible to it.

Stories? Advice?

2

I have dislocated my right
once in HS
And yes it hurts like hell.

I still can not do certain things like
upright rows, without any discomfort.
or very heavy flat bench.

face pulls, and several rotator cuff exercies do work.
particularly the one with the elbow on your knee.

shoulder “dislocates” with a towel help,
I went to a chiro and later a rolfer who cleaned up most of my problems.

3

There is a book you should ceck out The 7 minute rotator cuff solution, by health for life.

It has a lot of information about the anatomy and biomechanics of the shoulder. along with excercises for read and injury prevention.

Excercises can help a lot, but if you don’t understand the biomechanics of the shoulder you are really missing a big part of the equation.

The shoulder is considered a ball and socket, like the hip. But in the shoulder the socket portion is is a shallow scooped out part of the shoulder blade called the glenoid fossa. The rotator cuff is several small muscles that help the joint to function. One of the more important tasks is holding the upper arm into the glenoid fossa.

I have had a similar problem from martial arts. Throwing snap punches or shadow boxing puts a lot of stress on the rotator cuff to keep the humerous coming out of the glenoid fossa. So go easy on the shadow boxing. You need to do external rotation excercises like lying L flys and rear deltoid work.

The pecs and lats are both internal rotators so just trying to do push pull workouts will not help the rotator cuff, they just make the joint more unbalanced.

In response to kmc. Upright rows put the humerous into a position where the greater tubercle which is the attachment point for most of the muscles on the upper arm impinges on the acromion which is the roof of the shoulder. They are a real no no for someone with a bad shoulder and they are a good way to wreck a healthy one also.

4

Thanks for the replies.

KMC- it’s painful to do anything right now. I’ve been icing the shit out of it and what not, and it’s not that serious, but it was very unnerving- even though I’ve broken things, I never had something pop out. Strangest feeling I’ve ever had. We’ll see how it feels tomorrow… gonna hurt like hell I’m sure.

Sifu- I truly think this is happening because I neglect the rotator cuff, a stupid decision because I know it’s fucked up. I will certainly look into that book if you say it’s helped you out.

I’m just trying to not fuck it up any more than it is, and to try to repair it as much as I can.

5

O’Hooligan!!!

I swear you need to go back to tap dancing, look what you’ve done to yourself.

My mom had a dislocated shoulder where it was sitting on her back for a bit and now they can’t even use that arm for an accurate blood pressure reading.

The doctor told her to take ice the shoulder after any strenous activity and to make sure she moved it with as much motion but not to push it as much as she could every day.

now you just need that chesty liquor store owning she-monster to tend to your needs while you recover.

6

[quote]OctoberGirl wrote:

O’Hooligan!!!

I swear you need to go back to tap dancing, look what you’ve done to yourself.

My mom had a dislocated shoulder where it was sitting on her back for a bit and now they can’t even use that arm for an accurate blood pressure reading.

The doctor told her to take ice the shoulder after any strenous activity and to make sure she moved it with as much motion but not to push it as much as she could every day.

now you just need that chesty liquor store owning she-monster to tend to your needs while you recover.[/quote]

Oh, you know me too well, woman. Too well…

7

If it feels bad enough go see a doc!

i had serious bicep and shoulder injury
6 months ago. had surgery mar 24.

if i hurt my shoulder again, i will put a bullet in my brain rather go through that
pain again.

just a thought…

8

[quote]Sifu wrote:
There is a book you should ceck out The 7 minute rotator cuff solution, by health for life.

It has a lot of information about the anatomy and biomechanics of the shoulder. along with excercises for read and injury prevention.

Excercises can help a lot, but if you don’t understand the biomechanics of the shoulder you are really missing a big part of the equation.

The shoulder is considered a ball and socket, like the hip. But in the shoulder the socket portion is is a shallow scooped out part of the shoulder blade called the glenoid fossa. The rotator cuff is several small muscles that help the joint to function. One of the more important tasks is holding the upper arm into the glenoid fossa.

I have had a similar problem from martial arts. Throwing snap punches or shadow boxing puts a lot of stress on the rotator cuff to keep the humerous coming out of the glenoid fossa. So go easy on the shadow boxing. You need to do external rotation excercises like lying L flys and rear deltoid work.

The pecs and lats are both internal rotators so just trying to do push pull workouts will not help the rotator cuff, they just make the joint more unbalanced.

In response to kmc. Upright rows put the humerous into a position where the greater tubercle which is the attachment point for most of the muscles on the upper arm impinges on the acromion which is the roof of the shoulder. They are a real no no for someone with a bad shoulder and they are a good way to wreck a healthy one also.[/quote]

Sifu

Good points about learning the shoulder mechanics, thanks. the chiro I went to years ago showed me how it works,
how it can fail and ways to work around it. And how to keep the shoulder girlde strong/heathly.
I only do the upright rows , to find a baseline for progress, or lack of. they are not part of my workouts. unfortunately the movement of an upright row is very similar to something I do at work so I have to alway work around that too.
but thanks!

kmc

9

Shoulder injuries are the story of my life!

Strengthen your rhomboids and “lower traps.” (Don’t want any idiots saying there is no such thing as a “lower” trap, lol.) Prone cobras are good:

What you want to do is really focus on “gluing” your scapula to your rhomboids:

This is another great exercise (“blackburns”):

Yeah, the shit looks whack, but it’s a big help. You’d be surprised at how much is HURTS once you focus on those bullshit muscles.

Also, check this video from Diesel Crew:

In truth, the rotator cuffs are overrated. I was into that shit and always kept fucking up my shoulder. Then my ART guy got me on those bullshit exercises. And I’ve been mostly injury free since.

10

I have a partial tear in my labrum and the waterfall effect that comes with it when you don’t address it properly ( subscapularis shutdown,adhesions,overactive upper trap,weak lower trap etc )…my ART guy said after my first visit with him my pec minor was one the worst he’d seen and he’s been doing various massage therapy and bodywork since the 80’s, so like Californialaw i’ve dealt with shoulder issues for years.

And like CaliforniaLaw said
forget your “rotator” cuff…i did every combination of cuff exercises you could imagine and until i had good soft tissue work done and started focusing on thoracic extension,scapular stability drills,and nailing the crap outta my lower traps,activating my subscap,stretching the posterior capsule blah blah…did my shoulder get to the point where i could lift without altering my form and took me several month’s after that before i could hit the bag or spar or even grapple properly.

Mri’s are overrated as a good therapist can pretty much tell what’s wrong based on your symptoms and if your Insurance doesn’t cover it …it can get pricey, here in canada for a free shoulder MRI i’d have to wait up to 2 years…they reserve MRI’s for serious health issues and it would have cost me $3000 for a scan so i went the route of manual therapy and 2 People…Eric Cressey and Bill hartman…read everything these guys have ever written about shoulder dysfunction along with mike hope over at Elitefts.com.

A couple of tips…Don’t freak,after you rehab as a striker you need to strengthen the muscles that decelerate your strikes like your lats,rear delt’s and lower traps and build up your shoulders ability to absorb shock and strengthen your posterior chain to boot…punching power is gained though the ground up through each hands opposing hip and leg.This all depends of course what shoulder pathology you have…unless your shoulder is serious screwed ( you tore the tendon of the long head of the bicep or a serious slap lesion or your labrum is torn in half).

I’m not a PT i’m just sharing my experience…and don’t let anyone tell you your screwed for life like some doctors do…i had a doc tell me i’d never be able to lift let alone strike ever again…i found a good therapist and did my own research and my left shoulder is
asymptomatic now and i have almost zero pain ever unless i do something stupid and i lost a good 2 years of training because of the wrong approach…most of us have some joint issues but as long as you stay smart and tailor your training to your body you’ll be fine.PM me if you want more info cause i could go on for days…

11

If you follow this link you can see the anatomy of the shoulder.

http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=459577

The Infraspinatus and Teres Minor are the two muslces responsible for holding the humerous in the Glenoid Fossa and external rotation of the humerous. If you feel pain along the top of you shoulder blade that is the infraspinatus.

While it is good to do excercises for the other muscles that stabilize the shoulder, but don’t underestimate the rotator cuff. Those four tiny little muscles have specific functions. Without them the shoulder cannot mechanically function properly.

When you throw a punch and snap it back, it is the Teres Minor and Infraspinatus that holds the arm in the shoulder. If your arm is popping out of the joint it is those muslces that are weak or torn.

12

Ah the shoulder the most complex joint in the body according to the doc I worked with. Be careful and figure out what you should.

I torn the cartilage in my shoulder so needless to say certain exercises are a no no, plus I wake up some days with my shoulder sounding like a rice crispy treat.

Maybe I should look into ART therapy, sounds like it has helped with some of the posters here. TTT

13

i dont know if your still lookin at this, but in case you are.
your shoulder will heal itself fine. if it just popped out from a punch, chances of a tear or some other damage are little. im no doctor, but my shoulder pops out alot.
my best advice, get used to it, cause its gonna happen again.
itll be sore on some workouts and feel like its going to pop out again whenever you do overhead dumbell presses or stuff like that.
your a fighter. working out with a crappy shoulder is no worse than eating with a sore jaw.

14

[quote]ericmillah wrote:
i dont know if your still lookin at this, but in case you are.
your shoulder will heal itself fine. if it just popped out from a punch, chances of a tear or some other damage are little. im no doctor, but my shoulder pops out alot.
my best advice, get used to it, cause its gonna happen again.
itll be sore on some workouts and feel like its going to pop out again whenever you do overhead dumbell presses or stuff like that.
your a fighter. working out with a crappy shoulder is no worse than eating with a sore jaw.[/quote]

Haha. I hear you. It’s not gonna stop me from doing what I love…

It’s funny, because since I’ve really gotten into boxing and MA, I’ve found that simply weightlifting no longer keeps me occupied… I can’t imagine going through life not boxing and shit now. It’s funny how you get addicted to violence, I guess.

15

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Shoulder injuries are the story of my life!

Strengthen your rhomboids and “lower traps.” (Don’t want any idiots saying there is no such thing as a “lower” trap, lol.) Prone cobras are good:

What you want to do is really focus on “gluing” your scapula to your rhomboids:

This is another great exercise (“blackburns”):

Yeah, the shit looks whack, but it’s a big help. You’d be surprised at how much is HURTS once you focus on those bullshit muscles.

Also, check this video from Diesel Crew:

In truth, the rotator cuffs are overrated. I was into that shit and always kept fucking up my shoulder. Then my ART guy got me on those bullshit exercises. And I’ve been mostly injury free since.[/quote]

Thanks a lot, CA. I’m going to look into these, and also look into getting an ART guy.

You guys have all helped me out alot.

16

My shoulders blow. Check out Cali-Laws recommendations. He gave some good links in a post I made a while back.

17

Here are some points from Eric Cressey that relate to what Fighting Irish is going through. Don’t underestimate the importance of the rotator cuff.

  1. The infraspinatus has points of attachment on the posterior scapula and humeral head. The muscle contributes to several humeral motions, including external rotation (think of “rolling” the biceps away from the body, as in a tennis backhand), horizontal abduction (as in a posterior delt fly), and extension (as in a chin-up) (3).

  2. The teres minor originates just below the infraspinatus on the posterior scapular surface and inserts on the humeral head. The muscle contributes to several humeral motions, including external rotation, horizontal abduction, and extension. Along with the infraspinatus, it maintains posterior stability at the glenohumeral joint (3).

Safety: The rotator cuff is of paramount importance in injury prevention. Internal rotator dominance is extremely common among bodybuilders, powerlifters, and athletes for whom the pecs and lats are prime movers. These imbalances are also omnipresent in swimming, baseball, volleyball, and tennis due to the high volume of overhead motions (2, 3).

Strengthening the rotator cuff and the resulting improvements in glenohumeral stability significantly decreases the occurrences of humeral head subluxations, dislocations, and nagging overuse shoulder injuries. It goes without saying that injuries are one of the greatest barriers to progress in the gym. If you’re in too much pain to lift weights to stimulate growth, you won’t be doing any growing!

By giving the muscles of your rotator cuff the attention they deserve, you can eliminate the loss of valuable training time to injuries and increase your training longevity.

18

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Shoulder injuries are the story of my life!

Strengthen your rhomboids and “lower traps.” (Don’t want any idiots saying there is no such thing as a “lower” trap, lol.) Prone cobras are good:

What you want to do is really focus on “gluing” your scapula to your rhomboids:

This is another great exercise (“blackburns”):

Yeah, the shit looks whack, but it’s a big help. You’d be surprised at how much is HURTS once you focus on those bullshit muscles.
[/quote]

First of all, it’s very funny that you said that it looks whack.

But anyway, I was actually cringing when I watched those videos. Even before I popped the thing out, I probably couldn’t have done ANY of those exercises, even with my hands empty. Especially the Defranco training one.

Again, it irritates me that I let this slide for so long and this had to happen to wake me the fuck up. Only took 7 years…

19

Hey, I had it worse. [Violins playing.] I bought into the rotator cuff lie. So I keep thinking, “Man, I’m training my rotator cuffs, yet I’m injuring my shoulder. WTF?”

You know, it goes to show that it should be chiropractors and orthopedic surgeons writing articles about shoulders rather than “strength coaches.” Big difference between maybe having a class or two in undergrad vs. making it your entire education.

Now I just do a “structual test” thing with my ART guy. I said, “I’m tired of always getting stupid injuries. Test me out and see what’s fucked up.” Man, lots of stuff.

E.g., when I’d do leg lifts, my abs would not fire. Yes, seriously. My quads literally dominated what should have been an ab movement. Because my abs weren’t “working,” I had a back injury I shouldn’t have had. (I got it from being stretched out in back mount in BJJ.

Because my abs didn’t fire, there was no way for me to really remain tight when someone would take my back. Hence, I got a really gnarly back injury. Was better and never a problem again once my abs woke up.)

The first time I ever recruited my lower abs, I just did three little movements. I had so much lactic acid build up just from that, that I almost barfed. Eye-opening.

You think it’s just your shoulders, but man, I’m willing to bet there are lots of parts of your body not firing properly.

Better to figure it out sooner rather than later. Better to find a good ART guy. Beer money, I know, I know, cost kept me away for a while; then I realized how wrong-headed that thinking was on the long run.

Man, I have had so many dumb injuries that my ART guy showed me were caused by own failure to train certain body parts. I need to just sit down and remember what the hell they all were to avoid you guys the hassle of going through what I went through.

20

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote: Again, it irritates me that I let this slide for so long and this had to happen to wake me the fuck up. Only took 7 years…

Hey, I had it worse. [Violins playing.] I bought into the rotator cuff lie. So I keep thinking, “Man, I’m training my rotator cuffs, yet I’m injuring my shoulder. WTF?”

You know, it goes to show that it should be chiropractors and orthopedic surgeons writing articles about shoulders rather than “strength coaches.” Big difference between maybe having a class or two in undergrad vs. making it your entire education.

Now I just do a “structual test” thing with my ART guy. I said, “I’m tired of always getting stupid injuries. Test me out and see what’s fucked up.” Man, lots of stuff.

E.g., when I’d do leg lifts, my abs would not fire. Yes, seriously. My quads literally dominated what should have been an ab movement. Because my abs weren’t “working,” I had a back injury I shouldn’t have had. (I got it from being stretched out in back mount in BJJ.

Because my abs didn’t fire, there was no way for me to really remain tight when someone would take my back. Hence, I got a really gnarly back injury. Was better and never a problem again once my abs woke up.)

The first time I ever recruited my lower abs, I just did three little movements. I had so much lactic acid build up just from that, that I almost barfed. Eye-opening.

You think it’s just your shoulders, but man, I’m willing to bet there are lots of parts of your body not firing properly.

Better to figure it out sooner rather than later. Better to find a good ART guy. Beer money, I know, I know, cost kept me away for a while; then I realized how wrong-headed that thinking was on the long run.

Man, I have had so many dumb injuries that my ART guy showed me were caused by own failure to train certain body parts. I need to just sit down and remember what the hell they all were to avoid you guys the hassle of going through what I went through.[/quote]

Amen californialaw…my ART guy did a series of muscle tests to see what was firing and what was not,and i was AMAZED at the compensation patterns i had developed not only post injury but due to faulty training programming in my youth.

Like i stated i have a small tear in my labrum in my left shoulder but at the time of my first consultation at that point after a extensive series of test i found out not only had my pec minor shut down on my left side to protect the shoulder joint but my upper traps were hypertonic.

My lower lat/serratus tie-in was notted up which also caused hip hike on my left side due to my quadratus lumborum always firing which caused my TFL/band to get tight ( all on my left side) and my right hip flexor and glute medius were all shut down and weren’t firing at all.

Like californialaw…i was shocked at how completely jacked i was, i mean i was still lifting hard 2-3 days a week with heavy compound movements and was doing submission grappling and striking several times a week but i could never get the ball rolling in the right direction,i kept re-injuring my shoulder,then my lower back would act up which caused me to alter my training which caused more problems…

And i first injured my shoulder in 2000 followed by 4 years of doing all the “right” things with zero success,but until i finally started to have greater understanding of how joints structures inter-relate and learned all my faulty movement patterns and compensations did all my training almost fall into place overnight…

After ONE extensive muscle testing and ART session my shoulder strength doubled and in the beginning all those activation exercises would make me quiver and sweat and i felt like a was beat up with escrima sticks but within a couple month’s i could not believe how much better i felt.

I feel your pain…i lost YEARS of good training in my twenties and now i’m in my thirties so…address it now…and forget about what you didn’t do in the past…take care of business today.