Rotator Cuff Tear or Tendonitis?

[fslima0]

I injured my knee a couple of months ago and I ended up only doing upper body exercises. My injured knee has healed, but by only doing upper body, I developed a pain in my shoulder... The location of the pain (burning sensation) changes from day to day. I have no stiffness, loss of strength, or loss of ROM, it's just a burning sensation that seems to be worse in the morning. I could probably still be able to workout, but I am going to until the pain goes away. I can do the drop arm test without any problem. What do you guys think?

[KBKB]

I injured my knee a couple of months ago and I ended up only doing upper body exercises. My injured knee has healed, but by only doing upper body, I developed a pain in my shoulder... The location of the pain (burning sensation) changes from day to day. I have no stiffness, loss of strength, or loss of ROM, it's just a burning sensation that seems to be worse in the morning. I could probably still be able to workout, but I am going to until the pain goes away. I can do the drop arm test without any problem. What do you guys think?

Can you be more specific about some of the places where you do feel pain?

[fslima0]

Can you be more specific about some of the places where you do feel pain?

It depends.. sometimes on the back of the shoulder... sometimes on top and sometimes even close to the scapula? Sorry I don't know the shoulder's anatomy that well

[KBKB]

It depends.. sometimes on the back of the shoulder... sometimes on top and sometimes even close to the scapula? Sorry I don't know the shoulder's anatomy that well

Trigger point therapy might help. You are basically looking for knots (trigger points) in the muscle that are tender or hurt when you press on them. The idea is to do brief, but intense massages of these knotted areas several times a day. The knots will not always be in the place where you feel the pain. Trigger points can refer pain to other areas, often nearby, but sometimes not.

For back of shoulder pain, The Frozen Shoulder Workbook lists the scalenes as being the first place to start looking for trigger points. The scalenes are actually muscles in the neck and partially reside underneath the looser feeling sternocleidomastoid muscle. Feel around in your neck to see if there are any spots (in muscle) which hurt when you press on them. If there are, massage those spots several times per day.

There are quite a few other possibilities though. The rest of the list for back of shoulder pain is: subscapularis, teres minor, trapezius, levator scapule, posterior deltoid, rhomboids, serratus posterior superior, supraspinatus, teres major, latissimus dorsi, triceps, iliocostalis thoracis, serratus anterior.

The list is shorter for top of shoulder pain: trapezius, levator scapulae, scalenes, and supraspinatus.

You might want to focus first on the trapezius since it appears in both lists. Get yourself a tennis ball or a LaCrosse ball and roll it around your upper back against a wall. You'll be able to massage some of the trapezius higher up with your hands. That's probably where you need to focus anyway. Note that you should be able to get at the levator scapulae with your hands too. It can be tough to get at the supraspinatus, but if you have trigger points there it's well worth doing. I managed to fix some nagging side of shoulder pain that I'd been having for a very long while by massaging trigger points in the supraspinatus.

A more general purpose book on this subject (but by the same author) is The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook. It covers not only shoulder issues, but problems in the rest of the body too. It discusses massage technique and provides a comprehensive list (and descriptions) of muscles and their trigger point pain referral sites.

[JMCandelario]

Doesn't sound like a rotator cuff tear because you have full ROM and are not coming up as positive in the various tests...

My suggestion would be to do as stated above ^^^^ in regards to soft-tissue work (massage, foam rolling, etc.)

Working on proper posture as well as making a targeted effort towards strengthening the various muscles of the rotator cuff (minus subscapularis---this generally receives enough work through chest work, etc.) and the mid-back muscles will go a long way in not only resolving the issue, but as well as preventing future issues from arising.