So I’ve been struggling with this for a while now and I figured with stretching and time it would go away but it is becoming really frustrating now.
When I rack the bar, and especially when I unrack or jerk, I get an intense pain in my right shoulder. It doesn’t last much longer than the session, like the next day I’ll be fine. I think it has something to do with stretching my some muscle in my shoulder when I rack so when I unrack it “snaps” back into place and causes pain.
Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this and could give me some tips.
What’s your shoulder warm-up like? This is what I normally do that has actually gotten rid of some pain in my right shoulder:
T-spine extensions on foam roller
Foam roll the lats
Some type of stretch for the posterior shoulder
Side-lying extension-rotatation
Some type of scap push-up
Some type of deep neck flexor work (standing/lying chin-tuck, so it looks like you have a double chin when you tuck in)
Behind the neck band pull-down, wall slides, something like this
It wouldn’t hurt to stretch out your pecs in a doorway or something like that beforehand too, really lets you get more ROM. And don’t work through the pain man, give it time to subside.
i get pains on my shoulder sometimes, usually on my left one. I’m not sure if its the same as what you describe. Personally I think mine is from cleaning and instead of catching the bar properly it instead hits my shoulders instead of “landing” on them
I used to have shoulder “discomfort” doing pressing movements. I just did light rotator cuff work and it went away just like that.
I cant find the Branch Warren workout vids but thats where I got the idea from. He does some light rotator cuff and shoulder exercises before doing ANY heavy lifting.
I would bet my bowel movements for the enxt week that if you read Eric Cressey’s “shoulder savers” articles and started warming up with face pulls, scap push ups, cressey press and dislocations it would go away in a month tops. It’s almost always a winging scapula or upper-cross/over internal rotation.
read the articles and work on the shoulder savers. also roll your shoulders out a ton. I usually use a barbell collar on the incline press. right at shoulder height and nice and stiff.
I messed up my shoulder pretty bad last Winter training specifically oly lifts. At first the rack position was painful and jerks were bad too, but it quickly progressed into full blown disfunction and I couldn’t even back squat without pain. It started the same way as you, only painful during training, but eventually it progressed until I felt it during the day.
It ended up being my AC joint. It got noticeably inflammed until I could notice it through the skin.
My advice would be to get it figured out before it really gets bad, as it put me out of commission for a number of months.
Ice and avoiding anything that aggravates it would be a good place to start.
After my shoulder got bad, it really didn’t heal until I stopped everything that aggravated it even slightly and focused on rehab movements. This was after seeing an ortho who was worthless and finally a chiro who got me squared away.
So, I’ll second Chris’s suggestion to start working the shoulder complex, but I’d also start icing post workout and throughout the day, and chilling out on movements that bother it until it feels a bit better.
i’d have to agree with all the people that say to make sure that shoulder joint in as stable as it can get, but i’d also say to get a good coach that really knows wat they are doing to take a look at ur form. i had a problem with my shoulder and did all the shoulder stabilizing exercises, but the pain persisted…it turns out i wasn’t quite in the right position and once it was fixed the pain went right away
I do have a coach, and he says I appear to be in the right position, there is nothing visually different except that my elbows could probably be higher. It hurts on the top front of the shoulder going towards the side of the shoulder not really on the surface but in the muscle belly. I can press, benchpress, dip, chin, row, pushup, lateral raise with out any problems. I can snatch all day and my shoulder doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve been developing my flexibility, and I have read/do the majority of the exercise suggestions the Eric Cressey recommends for shoulder stability. I could stand to do more foam rolling on the shoulder. I find it weird that it’s only this particular position that gives me problems which is why I asked you guys on the forum.