theories on shoulder pain

[x-trainer ben]

So every guy here at one time, many pro's complains about it, and most have max lifts limited by it.
What is the reason that we all have shoulder pains?
We all learned how to lift correctly at one point(strict form) so what gives?
I would love to know your theories as to what we are doing wrong to cause it?
I have yet to read a good theory.

[Bando]

Got an MRI on mine last week, they're thinking rotator cuff tear.

I did it starting an old chainsaw, always been careful with shoulders in the gym as they are instrumental in so many lifts.

[LWW]

This is well known, it’s overuse of benching.

The bench press isn’t a “correct way” to be using your shoulders.

The overhead pressers who stopped benching all tell the same stories- overhead press is more natural and no pain, bench = pain.

The exceptions are competitive Olympic lifters, a max clean and jerk can and will disable you.

I have no shoulders issues, I never bench, I do floor press. I have been doing overhead pressing my entire 20+year career.

I do have back issues from frequent heavy picking chit up though. But I had back issues before I ever trained.

[induced_drag]

For me, despite the underlying injuries, I think a lot of what we call shoulder pain stems from imbalances. Stretching and support movements have helped me tremendously.

My shoulders got VERY bad after I stopped deadlifting heavy. That stretch on my shoulder was the only thing keeping me loose. When I stopped, my shoulders got so painful I could not hold my hand out in front of me. I tired everything and no help. Finally discovered for me, a few simple stretches have made is almost go away completely.

[mtpockets]

Never had real bad shoulder issues from lifting, I have injured them outside of the gym though. I haven't benched much since my power lifting years because it's just not comfortable for me so rather than risk injury it's been Dumbbells for the most part for many years, I can cant them a little and it works great. My last gym had an Arch Nemesis Swiss Bar




This is a great piece of gear, I love that thing and it allowed me to bench with a neutral grip without any shoulder issues, I liked it so much, I bought one for home.

[ajdahlheimer]

I think a lot of what we call shoulder pain stems from imbalances.

This. 100%. Most serious lifters who have shoulder pain likely do not have an actual tear in something--it is most likely shoulder impingement. Majority of the time the impingement is caused by the larger muscles in your shoulders, chest, and back being over developed from doing big compound barbell lifts like variations of bench press, OHP, etc. The stretching, lightweight band work, etc. will strengthen and develop the much smaller muscles in those same areas and relieve that impingement/imbalance. I've mentioned those Y-T-W-L's with lightweight bands on this site countless times becuause I went from close to a 4-plate bencher at one point to struggling with 135 on the bar (due to pain from impingement) and then back to a 3 plate bencher now--all thanks to incorporating them a couple times a week. My son is big lifter now for the last few years and I had him doing them when he first STARTED lifting and he still does them now (he benches more than me at the moment)--so my hope is he never develops the impingement in the first place.

-AJ

[Bando]

I've mentioned those Y-T-W-L's with lightweight bands on this site

I've been doing them every workout since you recommended them to me. Made some improvement but I start every shoulder day training rear delts so I don't know that imbalance is my issue.

[Cass40]

I’ve never had shoulder issues. I’ve had knee issues, lower back issues, sciatica etc. but never anything upper body except for costochondritis and that I think was caused by lat pull-down machine jerking me up. Now I just fly with it since I weigh less what I’m pulling down.
My theory is that I don’t have enough upper body strength to hurt myself but not sure if correct.

[ajdahlheimer]

I've been doing them every workout since you recommended them to me. Made some improvement but I start every shoulder day training rear delts so I don't know that imbalance is my issue.

That MRI should have definitively shown a tear or a partial one. Did they go over the results w/you yet?

[x-trainer ben]

'Y-T-W-L's with lightweight bands on this site countless times"

Unfortunately i missed the conversation, can you repost the basics of this?

[x-trainer ben]

I’ve never had shoulder issues. I’ve had knee issues, lower back issues, sciatica etc. but never anything upper body except for costochondritis and that I think was caused by lat pull-down machine jerking me up. Now I just fly with it since I weigh less what I’m pulling down.
My theory is that I don’t have enough upper body strength to hurt myself but not sure if correct.

knees and low back are numbers 2 and 3 if you are a long term lifter, we can get to those next.

[Bando]

That MRI should have definitively shown a tear or a partial one. Did they go over the results w/you yet?

Not yet, I see the surgeon next week.

[ajdahlheimer]

'Y-T-W-L's with lightweight bands on this site countless times"

Unfortunately i missed the conversation, can you repost the basics of this?

~9:45 of this video describes how to perform them. Use the lightest resistance weighted band you can find. (I copied the link from the time stamp, so you should just need to click it.)

https://youtu.be/IKc6hwPvsHg?t=589


-AJ

[Payton1221]

they're thinking rotator cuff tear.

THIS. There's a lot that goes on with the rotator cuff, and tears or partial tears are very common. While I can usually OHP with DB's relatively pain free, if I stretch my right hand over my head to get a glass off a tall shelf, my pain level goes to an 8 or so.

I've been looking at YouTube videos, but I haven't started any of the recommended exercises like the YTWL's.

Bulletproof Shoulders, IIRC, was a highly touted program using bands and many different shoulder exercises.

[x-trainer ben]

~9:45 of this video describes how to perform them. Use the lightest resistance weighted band you can find. (I copied the link from the time stamp, so you should just need to click it.)

https://youtu.be/IKc6hwPvsHg?t=589


-AJ

thanks man, on spread
now i need to find a red band

[LWW]

While I can usually OHP with DB's relatively pain free, if I stretch my right hand over my head to get a glass off a tall shelf, my pain level goes to an 8 or so.

.

This is because when grabbing a glass your shoulder is not in the proper plain, add weight to this and it gets worse.

The average gym goer does overhead pressing 100percent wrong.

Since you don’t experience much pain, you are doing them more correctly, however something has contributed to the pain when grabbing the glass.

Again, I was a student in olyimpic lifting since my mid 20s I learned the correct way to overhead press, and I never really maxed out on that.

The other way to press overhead was the old school way with the “lean back” and the reason why this way might not hurt the shoukders is because the lift involves the hips being in line with the bar as you “press out”.

Jerks are more dangerous because it’s all speed, if your timing is off, you can blow out the rotator cuff or elbow.
But when your timing is on, you are perfectly in line with the load, but the sheer forces in that is another issue.

[Paul Kreul]

I started hanging from a pull up bar for 20 seconds/3 sets and all my shoulder pain went away.

[ajdahlheimer]

thanks man, on spread
now i need to find a red band

I use this orange 15 pound band I got from Rogue. A pair costs $17.

https://www.roguefitness.com/rogue-monster-bands

[mtpockets]

I started hanging from a pull up bar for 20 seconds/3 sets and all my shoulder pain went away.

^^^^^ This post is worth its weight in gold for a shoulder impingement.


I was diagnosed with a shoulder impingement by a doctor who specialised in sports medicine back in the early 80's. It developed after I had a shoulder dislocation from an accident, and I can't recall the exact impingement I had, but anything over my head was pure hell, skiing and swimming were painful as well.

He suggested hangs, as well as some full rom exercises with very light dumbbells (working up from 1lb to about 8) stressing hand positions for these specific exercises were very important. It worked wonders and didn't take that long, I should have gone to see him earlier, instead I suffered for months with that fukker.

Glad it worked for you Paul.

[Bushmaster]

So every guy here at one time, many pro's complains about it, and most have max lifts limited by it.
What is the reason that we all have shoulder pains?
We all learned how to lift correctly at one point(strict form) so what gives?
I would love to know your theories as to what we are doing wrong to cause it?
I have yet to read a good theory.

How much are you warming up?

I have found not warming up enough to be the cause of a lot of my aches and pains..

[Karl_Hungus]

For me, despite the underlying injuries, I think a lot of what we call shoulder pain stems from imbalances.

^^ This. A common source of shoulder pain is a push/pull imbalance. This was the case for me years ago when I had pretty brutal shoulder pain. Once correcting the imbalance and adding rotator cuff strengthening exercises, my pain went away. Not properly balancing antagonistic movement planes or having stabilization weak points in a coordinated chain of movement can cause injury.

Poorly executed exercises (e.g. bench press is a common one) or doing exercises that are not compatible with one's physiology (e.g. BTN presses) can also be murder on the shoulders. Since the pandemic, I've changed up my routine pretty substantially and my shoulders feel better than ever. The only real open-chain pressing that I do are incline presses, and those were added fairly recently. The other pressing movements I do are weighted ring dips and handstand pushups. Years ago, I would have deemed weighted ring dips as stupid on stilts and a surefire recipe for wrecked shoulders -- but learning to stabilize weight in that way has done wonders for my shoulders.

[eomrat]

So every guy here at one time, many pro's complains about it, and most have max lifts limited by it.
What is the reason that we all have shoulder pains?
We all learned how to lift correctly at one point(strict form) so what gives?
I would love to know your theories as to what we are doing wrong to cause it?
I have yet to read a good theory.

In many cases it will be life that wrecked our soldiers more than lifting. Sure, you can do a lot of things in the gym that are unwise, but I think most of us are relatively careful and focused while we are lifting. We are not so careful doing life. My shoulders are not good at all, but for me, lifting sensibly has been the cure for my pain, not the cause. My shoulders got wrecked originally, one from a fall water skiing and one from trying to catch a rear diff that fell of a jack.

The only way for me to feel ok is daily stretching/rotations and lifting. As soon as life gets in the way of that, I start to deteriorate. At this point, I am lifting because I have too, just as much as for any other reason.

[Paul Kreul]

^^^^^ This post is worth its weight in gold for a shoulder impingement.


I was diagnosed with a shoulder impingement by a doctor who specialised in sports medicine back in the early 80's. It developed after I had a shoulder dislocation from an accident, and I can't recall the exact impingement I had, but anything over my head was pure hell, skiing and swimming were painful as well.

He suggested hangs, as well as some full rom exercises with very light dumbbells (working up from 1lb to about 8) stressing hand positions for these specific exercises were very important. It worked wonders and didn't take that long, I should have gone to see him earlier, instead I suffered for months with that fukker.

Glad it worked for you Paul.

Likewise.
I had shoulder pain from LaCrosse and waterpolo since high school & college, yrs down the road a friend gave me a book on hanging for shoulder pain, I was pretty skeptical but couldn’t believe how much the pain subsided from just after a couple days.

There are other parts of my body that hurt as I age but it is amazing what a few good stretches can do to absolve the issues these days. What once would have costed people hundreds in doctor fees, a simple YT search can save one yrs of pain & discomfort.

[mtpockets]

What once would have costed people hundreds in doctor fees, a simple YT search can save one yrs of pain & discomfort.

^^^^ This prompted me do a quick search to see what I could find on the hanging thing for a shoulder impingement and this turned up.

Pretty much describes what my recovery process to a T







You aren't wrong about YT Paul, it has helped me so much over the last 10 years or so. I watch YouTube pretty much exclusively, a great resource for those of us who like to learn and diy.

[gorjansimovski]

So every guy here at one time, many pro's complains about it, and most have max lifts limited by it.
What is the reason that we all have shoulder pains?
We all learned how to lift correctly at one point(strict form) so what gives?
I would love to know your theories as to what we are doing wrong to cause it?
I have yet to read a good theory.

Here are the facts

It's simply overtraining and overusing the muscles. If you train for more than 50 minutes, you are over training. If you train more than 4 days a week you are overtraining. And what's even worse is that not only are people overusing their muscles by overtraining, they also harm the nervous system and their hormonal system which takes much more time to recover than the muscle.

As for the shoulder, it is the most complex joint in our body, and if one of the tendons is slightly harmed, it will start affecting the entire shoulder and the way you train, which will cause a cascade of problems like frozen shoulder and improper lifting patterns.

In short, the connective tissue in our body takes much more time to recover WHEN PUSHED PASSED ITS LIMIT unlike the muscle that recovers in a couple of days. And it takes just one session where you overload the connective tissue, and come back and do the same intensity workout for your shoulder to get ****ed.

I had shoulder pain for 2 whole years which were the worst 2 years of my life. I lost the best physique I had because I couldn't train anymore from how bad the pain got. That made me start researching and finding ways to fix it.

I tried LITERALLY EVERYTHING to the point where I now know more information about shoulder pain, mobility and stability than a physical therapist (PS. 80% of Physical therapists don't know how to solve shoulder pain from lifting weights).

I did al the rotator cuff exercises, mobility exercises stability exercises, mid back, stretches which would fix my shoulder temporarily, but when I went back to the gym, the pain would come back very soon.

It wasn't until I discovered the very root cause of shoulder pain that I was able to address it in my training that I was able to fix it completely.

Mike Menser was right all along.

If anyone is struggling with shoulder pain, I am willing to do an injury evaluation FOR FREE where I will run a series of tests to see exactly where the pain is coming from, and then i will give you a step by step plan on how to fix the pain completely so that you can start training as hard as you want without ever worrying about your shoulder.

e mail me at : gorjan.simovski@gmail.com

[Bando]

THIS. There's a lot that goes on with the rotator cuff, and tears or partial tears are very common.

Upper Rotator Cuff is 75% torn and will require surgery. Out of the gym completely for 6 weeks, then another 6 weeks of not using that arm.

My eyes were leaking with the news. When I was out of the gym for covid it about kilt me. Gained 20 lbs, blood levels got way bad. The gym is huge part of my mental health and identity. At least then I could play my guitar and fap, can't even do that after surgery.

[x-trainer ben]

Upper Rotator Cuff is 75% torn and will require surgery. Out of the gym completely for 6 weeks, then another 6 weeks of not using that arm.

My eyes were leaking with the news. When I was out of the gym for covid it about kilt me. Gained 20 lbs, blood levels got way bad. The gym is huge part of my mental health and identity. At least then I could play my guitar and fap, can't even do that after surgery.

I am sorry to read this Bando!
12 weeks is a long time but for a lifetime lifter like yourself, it is a drop in the bucket and muscle memory is real, so you have that!

"The gym is huge part of my mental health and identity."
It is for all of us, can you do legs and cardio during this period?
My old high school gym teacher used to say that the great thing about weights, is that we can cut the body in half when we have injuries to recover from.

And guys/girls thanks to all of your contributions in this thread, i will be trying all of the ideas in order for relief.
The heavy weights are donski for me since i do not want surgery for a "hobby"

[Bando]

i do not want surgery for a "hobby"

I don't consider it a hobby, I consider it a lifestyle. I have great shoulders, thick, round, well proportioned, they turn chicks heads wherever I go in a tank top.

The idea of a surgeon just chopping through all that hard earned muscle is terrifying.

[x-trainer ben]

I don't consider it a hobby, I consider it a lifestyle. I have great shoulders, thick, round, well proportioned, they turn chicks heads wherever I go in a tank top.

The idea of a surgeon just chopping through all that hard earned muscle is terrifying.

I feel ya, but the pain i have been feeling for a week( radiating pain in back of shoulder,arm at times and center of shoulder) 7/10 is not worth the next 30 years.
i would rather be 1 and done like you and then use memory to regrow it.

Well i started at 13/14 so it is a lifestyle for me as well, but i use those words interchangeably.

[OgnenTBP]

Shoulder pain is always caused when we overwork our connective tissue and workout again without recovering first, the reason so many gym bros suffer from shoulder pain is because of the gross overtraining everyone is doing with the idea of progressive overload. Now everyone is stuck with bad movement patterns, muscle imbalances and weak inflamed tendons that cause shoulder pain. I created an evaluation system that test for every possible cause and condition of shoulder pain, after finding out what the cause of our shoulder pain is, its easy to fix it. In fact I guarantee that i can fix your shoulder pain in under a month, no matter how long you've had shoulder pain for. DM me and we can do a full injury evaluation where i will give you and exact diagnosis as well as every detail to your shoulder pain.