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2. What were you doing at the time? Or did the pain come on gradually over time?
Snatch grip Overhead squats.
3. Where, anatomically, is the pain?
A feeling of numbness runs from the outer edge of my shoulder along the top of the biceps down through the forearm and into the tip of my thumb. It is predominantly in my left arm, but I also feel it on the right to a lesser degree.
4. What does the pain feel like? Sharp? Dull? Aching? Stabbing? Shooting?
Numbness/tingling concentrated in the thumb. In the area of the upper arm into my shoulder it feels as if someone has been punching me and I have a "dead arm".
5. Is the pain constant, or intermittent, or only on certain motions?
The intensity gets much less as soon as I finish with the OH squats, but 2 days later I still have the feeling.
6. What motions make your pain worse?
I can only reproduce the problem using a weighted bar held overhead using a fairly wide (snatch) grip.
7. What, if anything, makes your pain better?
Nothing that I have found.
8. Does your pain radiate to any other part of your body?
No
9. What things could you do before, that you cannot do now because of your injury?
I recently started an Olympic Lifting training program and I feel like I may not be able to continue my training if this problem continues.
I also went to see my ART guy yesterday afternoon and he thinks that my radial nerve is getting caught up somewhere in my triceps. He gave me a good workover getting deep into my triceps, forearms and did a little work on my subscaps. You gotta love the pain of a good ART session.
He also told me that I should try to do more stretching for my pecs and recommending the doorway stretch 3-4 times a day.
As of right now (24 hours after my session) there has been no significant change in the feeling.
My first thought since you said it is bilateral (although asymmetrical) is that it could be coming from your neck. Since your thumb is involved, I'd guess that your C6 nerve root is getting impinged, at your neck.
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I did a little more searching after reading your comment and in my uneducated opinion it seems like I have a problem with both the c5 and c6 nerves because I am also feeling the numbness around my shoulder and into the biceps, and some weakness in the biceps and with external rotation of my shoulder.
No amount of movement of my neck seems to have any effect on the feeling, it only occurs when doing the overhead work. Is it possible that the problem is not in my neck, but somewhere in the shoulders?
I found this page and it looks like both the median and radial nerve can be stretched causing the symptoms that I am experiencing. Shoulder Instability | eOrthopod.com
I have never dislocated my shoulder, but I do feel some degree of instability when doing overhead work.
Sure it can be peripheral nerve ... could be getting hung up in your scalenes or pecs. How's your OH Squat form? Care to take a photo at the bottom or even a video?
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I am very lucky to have found the place that I did to train. They work primarily with atheletes and also happen to be a rehab facility. I had a training session tonight and we were supposed to do snatches and OH squats. I explained my issue and he changed up the workout to avoid any OH work, added some scapular wall slides I got to work with a PT after my lifting session.
He did some deep massage, working around my neck shoulders and down around the shoulder blades. Then we did a lot of stretching of the pecs, shoulder capsules and neck. He said that I had a lot of tightness, especially in the pecs and it would probably take a number of sessions to see a real improvement, and also recommended that I do doorway stretches a few times a day. We'll see how things progress from here.
I'll try to get some video of my OH squat tomorrow.
I will admit that I have not been as consistent with the stretching as I should be, but I'm getting better. I have not had any numbness for about a week now, even after a snatch workout. It only seems to bother me when holding the weight overhead for an extended period of time.
Besides the stretching, can you recommend anything that could help with the instability.
My coach has been incorporating stability ball pushups into my core work. I also do a few sets of scap pushups any time I am doing pressing work and try to do cable rotation work at least once a week.
Stability work ... some of my favorites are ...
Face Pulls
TYWLs
pushups on an unstable surface
scap pushups
PNF diagonals (sort of like a one-arm reverse wood chop)
And keep stretching!!!!!
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I have some thoughts on this:
- How's your scapular position? In particular are your shoulders more sloped downward than others? I have a feeling you may have what Sahrmann would categorize as either scapular depression or scapular downward rotation syndrome. If, in fact, this is the case, then shrugging your shoulders when you are holding a weight overhead in the snatch position should relieve your extremity symptoms.
I do not have sloped shoulders, but I did a few sets of OH squats with fairly light weight yesterday and tried to be more aware of my shoulder position and shrug a little during the movement. I did not experience any of my usual symptoms. I'm not sure if this was a result of the shrugging or the lighter weights that I used, but it is something that I will be more aware of in the future.
Thanks for the advice.
And thanks for the exercise recommendations Julie. I already have a few of them incorporated into my routine, but the more the better.
Numbness after OH squats
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