Shoulder aching

[maxisdan]

1. My shoulder has been aching since Tuesday, when I had an upper-body workout.
2. The aching started several hours after my workout, my shoulder felt tight after doing light lateral raises to loosen up between sets of dumbell bench and lat pulldowns.
3. The pain feels like it is in the joint of my shoulder, directly in the middle or slightly to the back. (see pictures)
4. The pain is a mild ache that gets worse when I lie down and gets very strong when I raise my arm directly laterally (and I can feel rubbing in my joint). raising it straight out in front or diagonally up does not increase the pain.
5. I can feel it very slightly all the time, but it gets much worse at night and when raising the arm.
6. see above
7. I haven't tried much to help the ache besides ibuprofen, which seems to help.
8. The pain is only in the shoulder.
9. I haven't worked upper body since the injury.
10. I'm mainly concerned about healing from this and balancing out muscle/strength imbalances that may have caused this. I also can't wait to get back to the gym, because I've had this happen before and it has taken 2 weeks to feel good enough to lift again.
11. I've had this happen to both shoulders at different times, and it typically happens when I'm increasing strength and am lifting more than I ever had before. typically I would get shoulder aches after barbell benching or shoulder pressing (in front of head). I started doing light shoulder raises and rotating the shoulders with light weights trying to strengthen the shoulders. I've also focused on back more to try to correct chest-back imbalances.
12. The pain isn't getting worse but in the past it has taken a couple weeks to get back into the gym and then another couple weeks to get back to strength again.

A little extra info: I included front, back, and side pictures so you can see if I'm imbalanced. I'm 6'0", 180 lbs, max bench: 260 lbs, max squat: 315 lbs, max deadlift 335 lbs.

What can I do to strengthen and add size to the shoulders to prevent this, how can I fix the imbalances, and what is I/O, T, Y etc. in the other injury posts?

Thanks much

shoulder injury.JPG

[bryanc]

So, do you have this mild ache all of the time (ever-present) or does it come and go? Do you get pain at night when you lie down to sleep? Does the pain ever wake you up at night? And does sitting or standing up alleviate the lying-down pain?

What did you do last time about this pain when it took 2 weeks to get back to 'normal'?

I appreciate the photos--particularly the one with the arrow on it. The problem with static photos is that they're generally quite poor at assessing actual functional imbalance.

Any pain with internal or external rotation of the shoulder joint?

[maxisdan]

5. I can feel it very slightly all the time, but it gets much worse at night and when raising the arm.
---it gets worse when I lie down and it does wake me up at night. I have very little ache sitting and standing, or when raising the arm in front of me.

The last time I had this I took ibuprofen for pain and did nothing else, and then it finally went away and I was very careful in the gym for a couple weeks after that.

The ache gets a bit worse when externally rotating the shoulder, but not internally. the pain is the worst when I raise the arm laterally (and is painful when I raise the hand to 1/4 of shoulder level. the ache lying down gets gradually worse until I wake up from it in the middle of the night.

Thanks so much for the reply

[bryanc]

and do you have full active range of motion in all planes, particularly laterally?

[maxisdan]

yes I have full range, even laterally, it just isn't pleasant raising straight out to the side.

[Athletic_Precision]

Attached is a pic of your sh's
If you Notice on the right side of the picture actually the left shoulder, where the trapezius is. Compare it to the other side (right shoulder) left side of pic. you notice there is a sulcus of somewhat of concave to that area. on the right side (L sh) it is not as much of a sulcus ( cave like). that is because the first rib is elevated. that is where the first rib is located. sometimes it elevates after activity or sleeping wrong. When it elevate it puts pressure on a nerve that runs on top of it and eventually goes to the middle deltoid. where you are expereincing pain.

There is a strecth that can help out
I hope not to confuse you with the application of the stretch.

1. place a towel over your Left shoulder or more over the left trap muscle.
2. Have one of the towel held with your left hand
3. Have the towel wrap around your back coming thru your right armpit and hold it with your right hand
4. Side tilt your head to the left
5. Pull down the on the towel, brace with your right and pull down with your left
6. While you are pulling down the towel down against your left trap side bend your head to the right and you will feel a strecth to the (SCM) Sternocleidomastoid muscle and also you are depressing the first rib
Make sure you side bend your head instead of rotate-bend (important)
You can also have someone do that manually by literally pressing a thumb in that area and side tilt your head. (too uncomfotable)


Frank Colabella MA, ATC, PT, CSCS, CGFI, SPARQ
http://www.athleticprecision.com
http://www.32count.net

[maxisdan]

thanks, I tried that stretch and felt it (I think I did it right). now I have a little aching only when sleeping and I have started working the upper body again. today I began including dumbbell bench presses, rows, and pulldowns near the weights I had been doing pre-injury. what exercises can I do, now that I have near full range, to prevent this from happening again?