Shoulder Pain Related to Lat Raise and DB Shoulder Press?

Training Injuries
1

I’ve done a couple searches and found that people do have some pain related to Dumbell Rows and Overhead Shoulder Press but I’m also experiencing pain when doing Lat Raises and Seated DB Shoulder Press.

It seems like on days when I do shoulders I get a ridiculous amount of pain in both shoulders but possibly more in my right. I can do Military Presses just fine but when I do Lat Raises and then Seated DB Shoulder Presses. I’ve read-up on form and dynamic stretching techniques and tried to make sure my form is right but I still get pain. Could it just be how my body responds to those exercises? Are there replacement exercises? I don’t have any pain from doing DB Upright Rows, DB Front Raise, Military Press, BB Shrugs, or Face Pulls. If the two exercises I mentioned are the causes of the pain, what would be two good replacement exercises?

Today’s shoulder workout included: 5x5 (military press, lat raises, and seated db shoulder presses)

Just in case, I’m age 32, 6’0, 222lbs.

2

hi
so sorry about the shoulder - that’s hard.
if you look at the muscles involved in the movements described, you’ll get why you’re feeling pain in all of them.

If you’re having pain doing a move

  1. stop - unless it’s life or death, never deliberately move into pain
    here’s a bit on why not:
    begin to dig: Why Not "Train Through Pain"?

  2. reduce load - does that let you get out of pain? if not

  3. reduce range of motion - does that let you get out of pain?

If none of these let you do a form of your movement without pain STOP

pain is a signal to change. it’s one we ignore and try to “work through” often making things worse.

It may be that you have an overuse/tendon injury right now and you need to pull way back, see a sports doc, and give your shoulder a break for awhile so it can repair. it’s hard to do, but sometimes necessary.

if there’s inflammation, need to get that under control; once that’s happened, there are a bunch of approaches to rehab. here’s some info on one

otherwise, everyone needs a coach. check with a qualified, experienced coach who can watch you lift for a reality check.

hope that helps - oh, and just some info about the shoulder here

dr mc schraefel

3

I kept having the same issues with my shoulders. Look into myofascial release for the shoulder. There’s plenty of info out there on how to perform it. I haven’t had a shoulder impingement since.

C…

4

[quote]-mc- wrote:
hi
so sorry about the shoulder - that’s hard.
if you look at the muscles involved in the movements described, you’ll get why you’re feeling pain in all of them.

If you’re having pain doing a move

  1. stop - unless it’s life or death, never deliberately move into pain
    here’s a bit on why not:
    begin to dig: Why Not "Train Through Pain"?

  2. reduce load - does that let you get out of pain? if not

  3. reduce range of motion - does that let you get out of pain?

If none of these let you do a form of your movement without pain STOP

pain is a signal to change. it’s one we ignore and try to “work through” often making things worse.

It may be that you have an overuse/tendon injury right now and you need to pull way back, see a sports doc, and give your shoulder a break for awhile so it can repair. it’s hard to do, but sometimes necessary.

if there’s inflammation, need to get that under control; once that’s happened, there are a bunch of approaches to rehab. here’s some info on one

otherwise, everyone needs a coach. check with a qualified, experienced coach who can watch you lift for a reality check.

hope that helps - oh, and just some info about the shoulder here

dr mc schraefel

[/quote]

That’s a lot of good info.

I definitely don’t want to keep doing these exercises that keep causing pain but I’m not sure of other effective exerices that can replace those because those seem to be fairly core shoulder exercises.

5

[quote]Jaynick77 wrote:

That’s a lot of good info.

I definitely don’t want to keep doing these exercises that keep causing pain but I’m not sure of other effective exerices that can replace those because those seem to be fairly core shoulder exercises.[/quote]

yup, i understand.
the sad fact is that, pending on how the reduce ROM/reduce Load to get out of pain goes, you may need just not to do loaded shoulder work for awhile - i know that sounds awful but sometimes that’s the way.

if that’s the case, keeping the pain free area of the joint and related areas mobile is still good and helpful for healing.

so working with shoulder cam shafts, shoulder circles - again in a ROM where they don’t cause any tweaks - can be very helpful.

there are lots of sources for shoulder (and full body) dynamic joint mobility. my bias is z-health here because it’s very specific. if you’re interested, there’s more on
z-health approach here (with videos)

and on the disk with those drills here:

best with your rehab.
no pain…no pain.

mc

6

[quote]-mc- wrote:

[quote]Jaynick77 wrote:

That’s a lot of good info.

I definitely don’t want to keep doing these exercises that keep causing pain but I’m not sure of other effective exerices that can replace those because those seem to be fairly core shoulder exercises.[/quote]

yup, i understand.
the sad fact is that, pending on how the reduce ROM/reduce Load to get out of pain goes, you may need just not to do loaded shoulder work for awhile - i know that sounds awful but sometimes that’s the way.

if that’s the case, keeping the pain free area of the joint and related areas mobile is still good and helpful for healing.

so working with shoulder cam shafts, shoulder circles - again in a ROM where they don’t cause any tweaks - can be very helpful.

there are lots of sources for shoulder (and full body) dynamic joint mobility. my bias is z-health here because it’s very specific. if you’re interested, there’s more on
z-health approach here (with videos)

and on the disk with those drills here:

best with your rehab.
no pain…no pain.

mc
[/quote]

Today was another shoulder day and after I was done with Lat Raises the pain started. I watched some videos and saw how I could improve my form but that wasn’t the case. I’m going to try them one more time with a reduced load and really just try and have perfect form and see what happens.

On a positive and strange note… After I finished that set I went on to do High Pulls and Low Pulls. After my second superset of High / Low Pulls my shoulders felt good again and I went on to finish my workout with no pain in my shoulder. I have some mild sworeness now but nothing like it’s been. It kind of doesn’t make sense as to why those two exercises would have that affect on me.

7

[quote]Jaynick77 wrote:
Today was another shoulder day and after I was done with Lat Raises the pain started. I watched some videos and saw how I could improve my form but that wasn’t the case. I’m going to try them one more time with a reduced load and really just try and have perfect form and see what happens.

On a positive and strange note… After I finished that set I went on to do High Pulls and Low Pulls. After my second superset of High / Low Pulls my shoulders felt good again and I went on to finish my workout with no pain in my shoulder. I have some mild sworeness now but nothing like it’s been. It kind of doesn’t make sense as to why those two exercises would have that affect on me. [/quote]

When you say “High Pulls/Low Pulls” do you mean the variation of the olympic lift where there is no catch? Or do you mean a row with different end points for motion?

8

[quote]Jaynick77 wrote:

[quote]-mc- wrote:

[quote]Jaynick77 wrote:

That’s a lot of good info.

I definitely don’t want to keep doing these exercises that keep causing pain but I’m not sure of other effective exerices that can replace those because those seem to be fairly core shoulder exercises.[/quote]

yup, i understand.
the sad fact is that, pending on how the reduce ROM/reduce Load to get out of pain goes, you may need just not to do loaded shoulder work for awhile - i know that sounds awful but sometimes that’s the way.

if that’s the case, keeping the pain free area of the joint and related areas mobile is still good and helpful for healing.

so working with shoulder cam shafts, shoulder circles - again in a ROM where they don’t cause any tweaks - can be very helpful.

there are lots of sources for shoulder (and full body) dynamic joint mobility. my bias is z-health here because it’s very specific. if you’re interested, there’s more on
z-health approach here (with videos)

and on the disk with those drills here:

best with your rehab.
no pain…no pain.

mc
[/quote]

Today was another shoulder day and after I was done with Lat Raises the pain started. I watched some videos and saw how I could improve my form but that wasn’t the case. I’m going to try them one more time with a reduced load and really just try and have perfect form and see what happens.

On a positive and strange note… After I finished that set I went on to do High Pulls and Low Pulls. After my second superset of High / Low Pulls my shoulders felt good again and I went on to finish my workout with no pain in my shoulder. I have some mild sworeness now but nothing like it’s been. It kind of doesn’t make sense as to why those two exercises would have that affect on me. [/quote]

dude that you’re still saying “Today is a shoulder day” when you’re still saying you’ve had pain and are having pain is the issue

The thing is that right now there are no more shoulder days
if you insist on going after your normal routine, you’re making it worse rather than healing.

It really makes perfect sense that you’d be feeling this way if you have tendon issues - it’s totally common to have pain afterwards especially with a tendonopathy.

checking the form recommendation was for AFTER your body has had a chance to heal.
drop the shoulder/arm stuff. you have your whole life ahead of you; you can afford some down time now to come back strong later: give your tendons a chance to repair.

mobility work, great. load such that this is the pattern. not great.
but since i fear i’m verging on repeating myself, i shall leave off

best on your rehab path
mc

9

[quote]-mc- wrote:

[quote]Jaynick77 wrote:

[quote]-mc- wrote:

[quote]Jaynick77 wrote:

That’s a lot of good info.

I definitely don’t want to keep doing these exercises that keep causing pain but I’m not sure of other effective exerices that can replace those because those seem to be fairly core shoulder exercises.[/quote]

yup, i understand.
the sad fact is that, pending on how the reduce ROM/reduce Load to get out of pain goes, you may need just not to do loaded shoulder work for awhile - i know that sounds awful but sometimes that’s the way.

if that’s the case, keeping the pain free area of the joint and related areas mobile is still good and helpful for healing.

so working with shoulder cam shafts, shoulder circles - again in a ROM where they don’t cause any tweaks - can be very helpful.

there are lots of sources for shoulder (and full body) dynamic joint mobility. my bias is z-health here because it’s very specific. if you’re interested, there’s more on
z-health approach here (with videos)

and on the disk with those drills here:

best with your rehab.
no pain…no pain.

mc
[/quote]

Today was another shoulder day and after I was done with Lat Raises the pain started. I watched some videos and saw how I could improve my form but that wasn’t the case. I’m going to try them one more time with a reduced load and really just try and have perfect form and see what happens.

On a positive and strange note… After I finished that set I went on to do High Pulls and Low Pulls. After my second superset of High / Low Pulls my shoulders felt good again and I went on to finish my workout with no pain in my shoulder. I have some mild sworeness now but nothing like it’s been. It kind of doesn’t make sense as to why those two exercises would have that affect on me. [/quote]

dude that you’re still saying “Today is a shoulder day” when you’re still saying you’ve had pain and are having pain is the issue

The thing is that right now there are no more shoulder days
if you insist on going after your normal routine, you’re making it worse rather than healing.

It really makes perfect sense that you’d be feeling this way if you have tendon issues - it’s totally common to have pain afterwards especially with a tendonopathy.

checking the form recommendation was for AFTER your body has had a chance to heal.
drop the shoulder/arm stuff. you have your whole life ahead of you; you can afford some down time now to come back strong later: give your tendons a chance to repair.

mobility work, great. load such that this is the pattern. not great.
but since i fear i’m verging on repeating myself, i shall leave off

best on your rehab path
mc

[/quote]

MC is spot on. You have to change your mindset right now from “training through this” to “rehabilitation”. It’s very difficult to do, but much better than going under the knife or not being able to train properly in the future.

Pain is never something you should ignore or try to train through.

10

What is happening is not an injury though, one of my exercises is creating some temporary pain. I understand what everybody is written but my mindset is to find the root-cause of the pain and make a change. At this point I believe that the root cause are Lat Raises.

If I had an injury, I would absolutely take a step back and let it heal but that’s not the case here. When I did my hamstring in a few years back I didn’t do any leg work for months, walking was hard enough. This is not the same situation, I’m trying to identify and eliminate a problem and I’m 99.9% sure I’ve found it. Tomorrow I’m going to do some shoulder work without Lat Raises and see how it goes.

11

[quote]Jaynick77 wrote:
What is happening is not an injury though, one of my exercises is creating some temporary pain. I understand what everybody is written but my mindset is to find the root-cause of the pain and make a change. At this point I believe that the root cause are Lat Raises. If I had an injury, I would absolutely take a step back and let it heal but that’s not the case here. When I did my hamstring in a few years back I didn’t do any leg work for months, walking was hard enough. This is not the same situation, I’m trying to identify and eliminate a problem and I’m 99.9% sure I’ve found it. Tomorrow I’m going to do some shoulder work without Lat Raises and see how it goes. [/quote]

  1. what do you think pain is if not an indication of injury here?

  2. Suppose you find that lat raises and your pain go together, what are you going to do?

12

“When you say “High Pulls/Low Pulls” do you mean the variation of the olympic lift where there is no catch? Or do you mean a row with different end points for motion?”

Yes, the Olympic lift variation that somewhat looks like an Upright Row.

RE MC:

  1. So I have tendonitis in my knee and my doctor says that it’s simply the way my ligaments sit on my kneecap or whatever and the fact that my kneecap is angled in a way that it rubs them wrong. There’s nothing I can do about my knee and sometimes it hurts just by walking around the house but that doesn’t mean I stop sports and lifting; I’m just more congnizant of what I’m doing with it. The pain in my shoulder feels a lot like what happens occasionally with my knee. With my shoulder it seems to be more of an inflammation caused by a certain movement than pulled or torn soft-tissue. That’s why I initially was trying to figure out what would be a good / equivalent replacement exercise for the Lat Raise.

  2. If Lat Raises and the pain go together then Lat Raises will have to be dropped from my routine; I can’t knowingly do them when they’re causing me pain. If I continue to do them long-term perhaps it will develop into something serious and it’s not worth it. If I continue to have pain in my shoulder without Lat Raises in the routine then I’m going to take a step back and really evaluate what’s going on and go see my Sports Medicine doctor and see what he thinks and what can be done. Which I hope that’s not the case because I’ve already blown through my HRA this year. :smiley:

13

[quote]Jaynick77 wrote:
“When you say “High Pulls/Low Pulls” do you mean the variation of the olympic lift where there is no catch? Or do you mean a row with different end points for motion?”

Yes, the Olympic lift variation that somewhat looks like an Upright Row.
[/quote]

Reasons as to why the High/Low pulls helped make you shoulders feel better:

  1. Provided traction to your shoulder which help improve blood flow and lubricate the shoulder joint.
  2. If done properly, high/low pulls are a great mid/upper back exercise, which will pull you into a better position and relieve tension on your anterior tendons.

In response to your responses to mc, lets not call what you have an “injury” but rather a “pathology”. Tendonitis (which in a lot of cases is misdiagnosed for tendinosis) is a form of tendinopathy, which means that there is some structural damage to the tendon. Doesn’t mean it is significant (yet), but just shows there is something not quite right. Whether it is rubbing of some form due to imbalances or structural abnormalities or some actual microtrauma or a significant tear, there is still something wrong. The pain is the main symptom to show that.

In response to this quote: [quote] I have tendonitis in my knee and my doctor says that it’s simply the way my ligaments sit on my kneecap or whatever and the fact that my kneecap is angled in a way that it rubs them wrong. There’s nothing I can do about my knee and sometimes it hurts just by walking around the house but that doesn’t mean I stop sports and lifting [/quote]

Here is my take: A doctor has diagnosed your knee as having tendonitis (assuming it is patellar based on your description) which is an injury. You compared your knee to the same thing as your shoulder, which in a way makes your shoulder situation an injury. But that is besides my point. You have this issue and state that it is due to your kneecap angled in a way that it rubs your ligament (it is actually a tendon) wrong. Then you say there is nothing you can do about your knee.

That last sentence in absolutely wrong! There is plenty you can do. You can do exercises to help correct that improper patellar positioning. You can increase necessary mobility and strengthen the appropriate muscles. By not doing anything, you are predisposing yourself to an ongoing and potentially more serious tendinopathy.

I guess the point of my rant is to say that you should be looking at your shoulder as just not some “minor issue” that can be ignored. Can you work around it, yes. But you should also be looking to correct whatever the ongoing problem is so that the issue will resolve. You have to be proactive about it all.

14

One thing you can try is eliminate all movements where the elbows are flared out.

For instance, lat pulldowns, dumbbell shoulder presses, etc are out. Military presses and close grip chins are in.

15

Levelheaded, thanks for unpacking this.
backinaction nice suggestions - not always easy to do when all these moves still involve the same tendons

levelheaded pathology is a good term - if we all get what it means - pathology is a disease process - somehow that often sounds worse to me than “injury”

and jaynick’s response is really common.

i think this may be at least in part because we have really bad models of what pain means.

pain is both a signal to change AND in the case of work in the gym like this
a sign that injury has already happened (or pathology is under way). The term “micro tears” enters the vocabulary.

hence a person still exploring their pain with load which is potentially more of an irritant seems to set off a strong reaction in folks watching this behaviour.

That’s why the suggestion to get with someone ELSE rather than reliance on self who can watch you move and help you look at movements (when the shoulder has healed) so that this doesn’t happen again.

Likewise as Levelheaded suggests about the knee.
I think for a lot of us who have worked with folks we’ve seen doctors who aren’t area experts say “there’s nothing you can do” - and have seen folks go through guided strength and mobilisation programs and get incredible relief. While your doc may be right that your knee case is the one in a thousand that is just so genetically abnormal that nothing can be done, s/he may be wrong - and here what does one have to lose but pain?

BUT BOTTOM LINE
i think what this points to is the understandable problem that a lot of us just do not have a very good model for what pain is and what that means in terms of what its signaling about body state and what we can do about it.

Levelheaded’s given some really nice input around this stuff. hope that helps.
now as for dealing with the pathology of the shoulder when it’s gotten to this state, here’s some work on what has been shown to be effective, but again, really really really encourage someone with knee issues and now shoulder issues to get with a movement specialist since these injuries/traumas are movement oriented.

approaches for tendonopathy: begin to dig: Eccentric Exercise - some cool ideas as to why it seems to heal certain tendinopathies (ps, ditch -itis and -osis)

and about the shoulder: begin to dig: the amazing engineering that is the shoulder, part 1: scapula and shoulder girdle

about the rotator cuff and related: begin to dig: The amazing shoulder - part 2: glenohumeral joint & muscles (yes rotator cuff too)

mc

16

To expand off of my previous response and mc’s response, definitely see a movement analysis specialist. When people start having pathologies at more than one joint, especially at different ends of the body, there can be a correlation between the two depending on the activities that person in involved it. This isn’t always the case, but usually is. For example, a pitcher with low back pain and shoulder pain probably lacks mobility at the hips and/or ankles, which is causes added stress at the low back and causing them to “open up” early during delivery of the pitch and then adding more stress to the shoulder.

My point being, see a movement specialist as the shoulder inflammation and knee inflammation may have a correlating source.

17

and following up from levelheaded
if you don’t know where to turn for a movement specialist, if u share what city your in and i’d be happy to recommend someone.

a list of fms trainers is here
http://www.functionalmovement.com/SITE/functionalmovementscreen/locatefmstrainer.php

a list of ck-fms practitioners is here

(trained directly with gray cook, and more intensive program)

zhealth trainers - look for an RIST qualified specialist if not a master trainer near you.
http://bit.ly/cE4UxS

happy to help with recommendations if there’s someone i know in your area.
mc