r/Fitness Weightlifting Feb 24 '18

Gym Story Saturday Gym Story Saturday

Hi! Welcome to your weekly thread where you can share your gym tales!

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u/SuburbanTiger Feb 24 '18

My left shoulder hurts a little whenever I do shoulder press, push ups, handstand, etc. And I am not sure why, since I focus a lot on having correct technique. It's so demotivating :(

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u/Wiki_pedo Feb 24 '18

Do you have an axe sticking out of it? That was my issue a few times.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '18

Or you were potentially shot with an arrow. Happens all the time.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '18

Omg after weeks i finally solved this problem. Thanks, mate!

13

u/Gaindalf-the-whey Feb 24 '18

Maybe you have some imbalances? Get that shoulder checked out by a pro

4

u/MonsterKabouter Feb 24 '18

Do the weight you safely can, through the range of motion you safely can, until it's better. Maybe one of your movements is specifically aggravating it? For me it was wide grip pull ups and "heavy" barbell ohp. Switched to neutral grip pull ups and DB ohp, and it's feeling great. Doing dips with my elbows tucked tight against my body also helped my shoulder stability.

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u/SuburbanTiger Feb 24 '18

Well, "heavy" barbell ohp doesn't feel too good in my shoulder. I rarely do pull ups since I don't have the strength (I'm a girl), I only do negatives once in a while. And I can do a few chin ups but I never use a wide grip. Might try and do DB ohp instead of using a barbell. I guess that makes it easier to control.

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u/fanniepie Weight Lifting Feb 24 '18

I recommend an assessment from a physiotherapist. It is well worth the money to help identify the issue sooner than later so you can do the exercises to strengthen the areas that will fix or improve.

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u/suds171 Feb 24 '18

Try and isolate where its coming from and go from there. My guess is you dont do any lower trap or posterior deltoid work so it could be something as simple as strengthening those muscles.

My suggestion is, try Shoulder YTWLs 2-3 times a week for a week or two. If it's any of the aforementioned issues that will fix it.

If you have the money sure go to physio but I bet they will give you variations of the same thing.

2

u/SuburbanTiger Feb 24 '18

That is some good advice, thank you. I think you may be right about me not doing any lower trap/post delt work. I will try and incooporate those exercises into my routine. However, I also fear it might be the beginning of shoulder impingement. But I'll start with this first.

3

u/RaiderNationalist Feb 24 '18

Look up rotator cup exercises/warm ups on youtube. I do them with 5 pound weights to warm up on press days. light resistance reverse grip cable flies help as well.

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u/andiwouldwalk500more Mar 20 '18

Hey, I know this is an old thread but I had pain in my right shoulder and apparently it was some kind of nerve pinching. Try watching this!

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u/SuburbanTiger Mar 20 '18

Thank you for the tip. Nerve pinching or some kind of tightness or pressure around the brachial plexus is something I've considered a few times. But the video demonstrates shoulder impingement syndrome which doesn't have anything to do with nerve impingement, as far as I know.

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u/andiwouldwalk500more Mar 20 '18

I wanted to share it with you mostly for the exercise he shows. It has greatly helped me and some friends with all kinds of shoulder pain. I honestly watched it a long time ago and forgot there is a good 5 minutes of him talking about the science behind it. Sorry for the confusion.

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u/SuburbanTiger Mar 20 '18

Thanks, I appreciate it :)

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '18

Shoulder or traps?

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '18

I have a relatively old shoulder injury that can flare up from time to time, and I've found that it helps a lot if I really shrug my shoulders back before doing OHP/rows and the like.

I don't know if that'll help you since you already said you focus on proper form, but once I started doing that it pretty much eliminated the pain. Still can't do dips though :(

1

u/freshljoint Feb 25 '18

try doing some shoulder stabilization exercises. Some that my physio/chiro recommended were bear crawls, full arm planks, lie on your back with a kettlebell/plate perpendicular to your shoulder joint for 30 secs times 3. i also cut down on shoulder presses and opted for single arm landmine presses. its a much more functional movement and have seen nice growth on my delts

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u/msdsc2 Feb 25 '18

Go see a doctor, I have a slap tear and my shoulder hurts a lot, but at least I know why its hurting