I have been lifting just over a year & half & when I started my form was pretty bad on all exercises. OHP really hurt my left shoulder & I stopped doing it. I saw a rheumatologist because i have hyper mobility who referred me to a Physio. She did the normal test & said I only had slight impingement & my shoulders were rolled forward. She gave me some RC exercises such as band pull a parts & wood chops to do. I had 3 visits with her & she discharged me because I didn’t present any pain when she examined me. Which I didn’t but I would intermittently have pain especially when lifting. I did my own research & concluded that I had tight pecs & bad posture. So I have been doing wall slides RC strengthening excises & rolling my thoracic spine. Also, what I found to relieve some of the pain was stretching my arms back over the foam roller when laid on it, rolling my lats & rear delts & more recently dead hangs. I believe i have some tightness somewhere maybe in my lats. I have stopped doing any exercise that hurts such as lateral raises, upright rows, heavy triceps push downs. What I am now experiencing is not necessarily constant pain but pain when I wake up in the morning which disappears after about 20 mins. I sleep on my back now with my hands at my side so it’s not my sleeping position although I have only been doing this a few weeks. When I dont work out over the weekend I am in pain again on the Sunday morning. It just feels like the side of my shoulder & at the back is tight & painful.
Also, what I did notice is that I cant get my bad shoulder into the same position as my good shoulder. When I do a bicep pose it feels as if something is preventing it aligning up with my good shoulder.
I am at my wits end now & have no idea what to try. Like i said the majority of pain is just when I wake so I have managed to correct something I think.
Your AM pain is clearly related to sleeping position. (I know you think you sleep on your back, but research clearly indicates that essentially everyone rolls around the bed all night, changing positions frequently.)
But no matter the etiology: If the pain isn’t horrible, and resolves in 20 minutes, why on earth are you ‘at your wits end’ over it? I don’t know a single lifter of any accomplishment who doesn’t have at least some pain somewhere. If you find minor aches and pains this vexing, weightlifting is not for you.
Thanks for your reply. Yeah although I start the night off by sleeping on my back I am sure I roll over etc. The only reason I said ‘I am at my wits end’ is because no matter what I have tried it doesnt seem to resolve it & I am just worried it’s something that could develop into something more serious to the point I would have to stop lifting.
The pain isn’t excruciating & I can most definitely put up with it as it almost resolves after 20 mins. I expect to have minor aches & pains lifting although no one else appears to suffer from anything shoulder related when I look around my gym. I just want to make sure I can lift as long as possible without injuring myself permanently.
Did the drs mention anything about bicep tendonitis? It’s a ghostly issue that causes a lot of shoulder pain. It especially pops up during shoulder work (OHP).
I’ve recommended this drill to pretty much everyone with shoulder issues. I have a small chunk of bone floating around in my shoulder from a bad dislocation so shoulder stability is huge for me. Run through all these motions for 5 reps each without resting your arms before every workout. Do lots more band pullaparts and face pulls, and it’s okay to put a tennis or lacrosse ball between your back and the wall and use it to find the painful knots and dig into them a bit. It just sounds like you don’t have particularly good form on some of these exercises, and you’re probably shrugging your shoulders too much.
Also, if your shoulders are rolling forward, it’s probably not tightness in your back, it’s the opposite - tightness in your anterior delts and upper chest combined with a weakness in your posterior delts. Rotator cuff imbalances are super common and more often than not are due to neglect or weakness in the rear delts.
Thanks for that I’ll start doing this tomorrow. I’ve started doing face pulls before every lifting session and also dead hangs. I think I have been letting my shoulders protract on a lot of exercises. When I wake on a morning it’s the anterior delt that feels tight. I’ve noticed that I’m always shrugging too like I’ve got a permanent shrug together with rounded shoulders. I also don’t seem to have any rear delts that you can see so like you say I think I’m just really tight at the front and weak at the back.
Make sure you’re doing horizontal pulls with plenty of volume and at a 2:1 or even 3:1 ratio to your vertical pulls. What routine are you following? It’s okay to minimize your overhead pressing - and I assume you’re not doing dips, because if you are, stop - at least for the time being.
I’m following a PPL routine from Reddit. Not sure if your familiar with it? For pulling im doing 3x5 Pendlays, 3x10 BOR, 3x10 lat pull downs, 3x5 weighted pull ups, 3x10 machine rows as well as plenty of face pulls now and rear felt flys. I’ve really bumped up my pulling. The only overhead press that feels ok on my shoulders is smith machine seated OHP for some reason. I don’t do dips because of my shoulder. I just dare not try to be honest.
You’re smart not to try. Do you do overhand pull-ups and if so can you switch to neutral grip? And to condense the vertical pulls you could superset the WPUs with lighter lat Pulldowns, super slow negatives, etc.
Yeah I do a relatively narrow grip overhand pull up. Will neutral grip be better on my shoulders? I was thinking of dropping the lat pull downs now I’m on to weighted pull ups but I’ve kept them in just for volume and I do try to concentrate on the mind muscle connection with them at a relatively low weight.
YES. I mean, I can’t realistically say yes for everyone and every situation, but I think neutral grip is just so much better for shoulder health with pull-ups. I save the overhand grip for Pulldowns, where I can drop the weight and focus on the MMC. In addition, close grip overhand are giving you all the shoulder stress with the addition of an increased ROM.
And whether or not you drop the lat Pulldowns is up to you and dependent on your goal - I have found lat Pulldowns to be better for hypertrophy than pull-ups, or WPUs (I can do a few reps with 2 plates hanging from me). I just love pull-ups and think they’re an important exercise.
I hope you’re describing this discomfort accurately, because if it’s a legitimate injury you should disregard everything I’m saying and seek advice from a sports therapist who can diagnose you properly. I’m not a professional, I’ve just spent a fuckton of hours reading articles and studies on shoulder health due to my own injuries.
The last thing I’ll say is work on your posture. Shoulders back and down, head upright, etc. I work with machines that require me to bend over a lot, and it’s amazing how many problems a poor posture can create. You’ll have to check yourself at least every ten minutes, because no matter how perfect you make your posture, you’ll forget about it quickly and go back to slouching.
