Upper Back Injury

Training Over 35 Lifter
1

Thought I might throw my recent upper back injury experience out there…might help someone else out. I am no stranger to intense lifting.

End of December 2009, I was doing isometric holds using the high back squat posture: 405 lbs on the bar was sitting on my upper back and I was unracking the bar, just standing up with my whole body tensed for a few seconds with my knees very slightly bent and then racking the bar. Anyway, after about 2 sets or so, the bar moved slightly down on my left side. I caught it but felt a little something give on my left scapulae. So I called it a day.

A few days later, I was front squatting 245 for 3 reps. As I was about to rack the weight on the 5th and last set, I turned my head slightly to the right, for some frickin’ reason, and felt a sharp pang in my left scapulae closer to the spine. Nothing unbearable as I would go on to do a couple of sets of farmers walk with 90 lb dumbbells. I had actually felt this particular ache/pang a year earlier…when I was standing up ready to front squat and then had looked down at my feet to check their positioning. That time, it bothered me for only a week.

This time, I kept waking up in the mornings with the left side of my neck stiff and achy. And there was a constant throb between my left scapulae and spine. The Reach and Pull Stretch, outlined at the bottom of this post, gave me instant relief for two or three hours, depending on how caught up I was on the job. But the morning stiffness in my neck was there until I stopped using a pillow.

Anyway, I stopped all spinal loading – lifting weights – somewhere in the middle of Jan and just concentrated on my conditioning with 50 rep sets of bodyweight squats plus pushups and chins. Nothing intense. All smooth movements. I did notice that the injury got irritated if I attempted to do scap pushups/chins.

Its been almost two months since all this happened and I am mostly feeling fine…as long as I don’t twist in a certain way when sleeping or use a pillow. I now sleep only on my back, with my scapulae bunched together and am getting used to it. Sleeping with my scapulae spread makes the pain return in the morning.

I suspect that my injury is either a rhomboid or middle-to-upper trap tear. At first I thought maybe it was a slipped disc or something like that but decided since I had full mobility in my torso other than some stiffness and throbbing pain, it was most likely a muscle strain.

Has anyone else had a similar injury?

REACH AND PULL STRETCH: Try to stand by clasping your hands in front of you at your chest height, and then drop your head down by stretching it at the back of your neck. Now try to move forward with your arms by stretching your upper part of the body backwards. Hold this position for at least 15 to 30 seconds. Repeat this process for 3 times. This exercise can give better relaxation for your rhomboids.

2

I had a similar problem. Two days ago I was doing power cleans, and it was my first day back in the gym after recovering from a grade 2 ankle sprain. I was really excited to get back to lifting. I was ramping up, and I pulled one a little high and it fell down on my collar bone as I didn’t get my upper arms fast enough. Something popped in my upper back right where you said between the scapula and spine right where the upper trap and middle trap would meet if they were different muscles. It hurt to move my neck in either direction like a deep throbbing pain. I iced it for the first 48 hours and now if I just let my arm hang, there is a dull pain, but if i retract and depress the scapula all the way, there is a sharp pain at the end range of the movement. If there is pressure on the spot that hurts, like if I have someone dig their fingers in there, I can retract and depress fully with little to no pain. I feel like if I do some soft tissue work it will feel better. Another thing is like the OP said it hurts the most when I wake up. By the end of the day the pain has subsided a lot. I think it might be that laying on my back at night is not doing any good for the swelling.

If anyone else has had this sort of injury and recovered nicely from it. I am open to all suggestions.

3

You guys are describing the exact thing I have been dealing with for a little over a year now. I have hurt it doing several different things: shrugs, standing OHP, seated OHP, dead hang pull ups, and DB flys. I have tried to rehab it many different ways and the injury still reoccurred on another exercise.

I have been racking my brain trien to figure out why I keep hurting this same area. I cant tell you how frustrating this gets for me. I have tried foam rolling, face pulls, different kinds of streches before or after lifting, and I have also tried not doing any of the exercises that I have hurt it on but I just hurt it on another. I have been lifting seriously for almost 4 years and I have gotten to the point where I almost just wanna quit. I lift to be in better shape, not to be in pain for 60% of the year.

It kinda pisses me off that there are plenty of people out there with good genes that do nothing but sit on there fat ass and stare at the TV, and there are people like us with the motivation and knowledge but we cant lift because of stupid injures.

I just wanted to bump this to see if anyone had any rehab advise.
And please dont say stupid shit like “get an MRI” of “Go see a specialist”. If I had the money for that, I would have done that first.

4

Instead of a foam roller, use a lacrosse ball and lay down and roll your back over the lacrosse ball. This helps me immensely with upper back/neck/trap issues. The foam roller is too blunt to get into that area and effectively break up the adhesions like a lacrosse ball.

5

[quote]ghost87 wrote:
Instead of a foam roller, use a lacrosse ball and lay down and roll your back over the lacrosse ball. This helps me immensely with upper back/neck/trap issues. The foam roller is too blunt to get into that area and effectively break up the adhesions like a lacrosse ball. [/quote]

Thats strange. I just logged on to read this right after I did pretty much exactly what you just suggested.

I used a tennis ball and put it on the wall with my back against it. Did bout 30 sec 4 times and it feels 80% better for about an hour.

My recent theory is that I have been waiting for it to heal before I rehab it (if that makes sense). I think it has been healing all knotted up and that allows it to get injured again easily. I can only hope this solves the problem. Ill keep you guys posted.

Thanks ghost. Ill try and find a lacrosse ball.

6

Ok. Went and got a lacrosse ball and my trap feels a lot better after rollin around on the ground with that thing. It hurts like a mother using it but now I feel like I may have beat this persistent injury that has sabotaged my lifting for over a year. Ill keep you guys posted.

7

how is the pain now decampsk8?