Right shoulder hurts when doing pullups

[henh2o]

So basically when i do pullups my right shoulder hurts. I don't think it hurts when i do shoulder exercises unless its shoulder press very heavy i think and its only a little pain. Pullups on the other hand always gives my shoulder a pain feeling. I do weigh a lot tho 215lbs. Do i have a shoulder injury? Should i just break from pullups but pullups work out ur back really well. Any advice whats wrong with my right shoulder?

[xxsupergman25xx]

possible rotator cuff weakness in one of the 4 muscles.

[MuscGainLyght13]

So basically when i do pullups my right shoulder hurts. I don't think it hurts when i do shoulder exercises unless its shoulder press very heavy i think and its only a little pain. Pullups on the other hand always gives my shoulder a pain feeling. I do weigh a lot tho 215lbs. Do i have a shoulder injury? Should i just break from pullups but pullups work out ur back really well. Any advice whats wrong with my right shoulder?

Why dont you switch to pull downs for a while?...The chances of a severe injury are slim since you said it barely hurts on shoulder exercises. I agree with the post above, most likely a weakness being exposed.

Compound exercises generally expose and are held back by weaknesses. Your other muscles are most likely strong enough to do the motion, but a few are lagging behind thus creating the pain.

I wouldnt cut off the notion of it being a RC weakness. With that said, pull ups (depending on how you do them) either can affect the RC muscles more direct, or not so much. There are two Teres muscles located in the area of your shoulder. The teres minor is a part of your RC, the teres major isnt. The teres major is a synergist (aids the prime mover) in pull ups (prime mover being latissimus dorsi). This could be the case, however, if you are doing pullups behind the head and there is pain it is more legit that it is RC deficiency. Infraspinatus is hit much more directly.

Dont get mad, but I am going to assume that you dont have the best stability during pull ups (you may do, then just disregard this). If you are swinging, it will put more stress onto the RC muscles (as other muscles, but I am trying to compliment the above post).

[henh2o]

I am doing regular pullups not behind the head. my balance for pullups isnt the best but i do tend to swing if i want to do more reps (cheating) i know. Even if I am doing slow and stable pullups my right arm shoulder does strain and hurt. For pull downs I do 150 10x , 165 10x then 185x 10x. No pain there yet it doesn't feel as tiring as pullups since I can only do like 3 sets of 5-7. Maybe 3 sets of 10 if I do it first but i usually do pullups midway or end of my back workouts. So how do I correct my muscle imbalance if i do have it?

[MuscGainLyght13]

I see, well you may have strained it when swinging...who knows, there are many ways you may have caused the pain.

Id suggest sticking to pulldowns for a while while you strengthen your RC muscles. Look at it this way, who gives a rats butt if you feel pull ups work the back better, the fact is that it is hurting your shoulder. If you dont stop or fix it, you may end up out of the gym for months, then youll be wishing you just stuck to pulldowns for a while.

If you are doing pull ups midway through your workout, your muscles are goin to be fatigued, allowing for injury to be more susceptible.

Suggestions: Switch to pulldowns for a few weeks, work on internal/external rotations, properly warm up before working out ---External rotations will work infraspinatus and teres minor, internal will work subscalpularis..these are 3 of the 4 muscles of RC..If you want to work the forth you could, instead of doing front raises with arms directly in front of you, put them at a 30 degree angle out(So it's mid way between frontal and lateral raise position), pointing your thumbs down, so your palms are facing laterally. Then when you do the frontal raise motion, retracting your scapula down and in. Always make sure the injured shoulder is doing the same motions contra-lateral shoulder.