I get pain in my shoulder for a few days to a week after working out with any pressing movements.
The pain is present when I lift my left arm over my head and seems to be in the top of the shoulder in the boney bit where the joint is.
I also get the pain when pushing hard doing bench presses and when I do band dislocations or rotate my shoulder around in the joint just going about my every day life they both make loads of clicking and cracking sounds but only one shoulder gives real pain.
I think I did this benching too heavy over a year ago and this caused me to completely stop training for a number of months. When I started again I got an NSAID shot into the affected shoulder which helped but the pain has come back after a month or two.
I dont want to get another shot so what should I do to fix this problem? Does this sound like a rotator cuff injury or another type of joint problem?
Should I stop all pressing and just concentrate on pulling as well as some rehab movements for the time being and if so what should I do for rehab?
Thanks, I’ve always tried to balance my pushing to pulling before but obviously have gone wrong somewhere.
I get that sometimes too! Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with my arm under the pillow supporting my head and it hurts like hell to pull it out of there. I think my pain is the #1 location on that picture above. It usually hurts after bench press day and goes away within a day or two. I’ve been doing some rotator cuff exercises on shoulder day and that seems to be helping.
if you are working through pain, please stop. If bench press is causing a reaction, back off.
Rule no 2. REDUCE load, reduce range of motion so there’s no pain in the movement.
Since you’ve had a shot, what does your doctor say it is? a tear or tendinopathy of some kind?
What it sounds like is some kind of tendinopathy, and what i’d be inclined to do, since the NSAID is that that helps cut back on inflammation in what’s likely a supraspinatus irritation. Cutting back on inflammation means- increaseing space between the acromion (in no. 1) and where the supraspinatus attaches to the arm (top of the humerous).
So a question might be, is there a place in your movement that causes pain? And based on that there are a few things we can try to help open up the space again BUT kinda need to know exactly what you do in a movement and where in the movement the pain may be.
LevelHeaded - The pain is at area 1. I would say I could touch it if I rubbed the area as it is felt right in the boney area or slightly underneath point 1. Cheers.
-mc- Bottom or top position of benches, oh pressing, top and bottom of pushup cause pain. Although sometimes I can get away without pain and then only start feeling it the next day. As far as reducing loads etc I will stop all pressing if required.
3djedi - Sounds like me, pain is more present the next day and my shoulder feels “dead”.
If the pain is more on the top of the shoulder, at the edge of your clavicle (collarbone) then it sounds like an AC joint issue. If the pain is more towards the bulk of the shoulder near the anterior deltoid, it is probably an impingement/biceps tendon or supraspinatus issue.
Stop/modify movements that cause immediate or subsequent pain. Begin looking into the length of your pec major/minor and anterior shoulder muscles and the strength of your scapular stabilizers. Keep your scapula in the proper position during all exercise and attempt to maintain proper posture as much as you can.
The issue is definitely at the collar bone joint and I don’t seem to get pain anywhere else in the shoulder. I think I could stop the pain by using floor presses, pushups or BW dips for the time being but with a limited ROM as even the top position of pushups can hurt. I will try this.
Can I ask a few questions about how to go about doing the rest of what you suggest?
Would you recommend I do static streches for the pec major/minor and anterior shoulder muscles to lengthen them? If so are there any stretches in particular you would recommend?
The stretches for that area I know of are a doorway stretch where you put one arm on a door frame and twist your body to stretch the pecs and shoulders and a stretch where you lie on your left side, left arm behind your back at a 90 degree angle to your body and roll backwards slightly to stretch the chest which felt alright. Would these be suitable?
As far as strengthening the scapular stabalizers, would I be heading in the right direction if I do things like shrugs (BB, DB, OH, Dip shrugs etc), scap pushups, wall slides and face pulls?
Lastly for keeping the scapula in the right positiong during all exercise does that mean to try to pull the shoulder blades backwards as if trying to touch them together? Should I be trying to pull them downwards at the same time?
Thanks for your help, I really want to get this injury resolved as I’ve avoided it for a long time now hoping it would go away and it just wont’t seem to do it on its own!
-mc- - Sorry forgot to mention the doctor never really told me what the problem was, just that I had ok mobility in the joint and was not nearly as bad as some people he sees. He said sometimes the joint can become inflamed and said he recommended I have a shot in the area to fix the problem. I did and it did fix it so I was happy, but it didn’t last long! I don’t want to go down the route of keep having more shots either because if it comes back it’s obvious something is wrong that they won’t fix.
Thanks very much, I’ll start doing a couple of 30s sets of those stretches every morning and will try to keep my scapula pulled back, I’ve been trying this today actually while sitting at my desk - trying to maintaine good posture all day and I think it might be helping a bit already! Might just be placebo but my shoulder feels a bit better. I have a tendancy to slouch a lot and I think this has rolled my shoulders forward.
guys sorry - i got nothing in the lit to show that stretching is useful in these cases. Isometrics at end range of motion - sure esp. if there’s a muscle not firing at that place - but stretching?
i’m just saying. what lets us stretch in a controlled way? strength. it’s not the other way around: even in that article - and i think e.cressey is a v. smart person - it’s about strength of the muscles and ligaments so that they can do their job with the joints. and if you look at the stretch so called being done, it IS more of an isometric - so hold it & actively contract and see what happens instead of this kind of let yourself be stretched - make the muscle work. That builds tendon strength.
i’m way more with levelheaded about scapular positioning, but that too would best be checked by someone who can look at you, lay hands on you and SEE if in those positions your muscles to hold those positions are actually firing to do their job and so help create the space that you need to maintain that will likely, maybe help reduce the pain.
if a muscle isn’t doing its job - like the lower traps pulling down on the scap when your arms go up into your press - then some coaching or exercises to help build up the mental map to do that move may be the most useful, specific rehab for you.
I agree with you mc about it being all about muscular strength and definitely agree with the isometrics at the end range of a stretch. I was just advocating the stretching of the tight anterior muscles to help decrease the inhibition that would be placed on the weak posterior muscles that were trying to be activated. By no means am I saying that just stretching alone with help the problem, but I think that the stretching is a good synergist with the strengthening, especially if the isometrics are done in conjunction with the stretching. Sorry for the confusion.
