Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Jacked up shoulders

So today's workout was three rounds of 10-15 overhead squats with a PVC pipe (no weight), 10-15 situps (still sore from Saturday!), 15 pushups, 10 ring dips (with my feet on the ground - those HURT my shoulders a ton), 10 90-degree chins, and 10-15 back extensions.

Then I played around with barbell snatches.

Then I asked Adam if he thought my shoulders should be rotated back from where they are, and he said that they look pretty messed up to him. Not in those words, obviously. I knew it though...I can tell when I stand up straight that they are internally rotated forward. So Adam spent about half an hour with me trying to get them to straighten out. It helped a little, but I'm going to have to work on them every day if I want them to eventually straighten out. Ugh. Its so frustrating. My right shoulder is significantly worse than my left shoulder. I am wondering if its because I've always carried my backpack on my right shoulder...

Well, anyway, I really need to get to bed. Be strong!

6 comments:

madison said...

Hey K-smash! Sorry to hear about the shoulder. Sounds tedious. I hate having pain and the way it upsets my training. I'm sure there are a lot of different approaches you're trying to get things re-aligned. Right probably hurts more because it's over-used "all" the time, not just back-pack carrying. Depending on the pain, strain, etc. Least impact would be to work with bridge, emphasis on the upper spine feedback (top of head, outside edges of upper arm, and base of elbows). Also, prone mountain again with lots of feedback at the top of head, back of neck, and back of upper arms. Hope it helps!!!

madison said...

One more thought. Developing more stability around your shoulders is really important if you are going to keep training like you do without seriously injuring them. Your shoulders are really hypermobile. For a good long time (e.g., 3 months) if you were to really focus on the alignment/mechanics of your shoulders and ONLY work a range of motion that lets you stay absolutely faithful to perfect alignment, you would automatically build up the stability and limit the range of motion. This would mean, less range of motion at both extreme ends of the position. Don't go to your fullest range at the bottom of the pushup, and stop just short of the "top." Same with chin ups, really limit range of motion on dips if you do them at all, and for any overhead motion, make sure your arms are in front of your ears, not next to them. This might mean less resistance on presses, etc. Just an idea...

K-Smash said...

My shoulders only hurt when I try dips. Nothing else aggravates them. I haven't done dips in a really long time, so that's how I became aware of the rotation in my shoulders. I was aware of it a long time ago, when I was still at the Monkey Bar, but then I forgot about it again.

I do need to work more supine bridge and prone mountain into my own training. I don't think I could devote three months to a limited range of motion training right now, because I have to train for the PFT again. Once I am done with the training (job training, I mean), I'll be able to do it. Even if I knew specifically when I was going to be in training, I could do that for a while, but I don't know. All I know is that they said to be ready...but I will add some of that work into my current training. I just can't cut out the PFT stuff...

Thank you!

amber said...

I'd avoid dips at all until you can build the rotator cuff again, and do daily HEY as bbg suggests.

As long as the other exercises (pushups etc) don't aggravate, they're probably okay for now. The dips sound like they sent you over the edge, overdid a few muscles, and caused some clamping down of damaged fibers in your shoulders. HEY will get those shoulders back to baseline, and down the road, you can work on real strength building in the proper position. Until FBI training is over, I'd focus on not re-injuring.

K-Smash said...

I agree that I shouldn't do dips for now. I haven't done them in almost a year actually. Nothing really makes my shoulders hurt except dips, so when I did them, it shocked the heck out of me. I'm going to commit to doing the HEY every day, supine bridge and prone mountain at a minimum, and I'm also going to do some specific Egoscue exercises that Adam showed me.

I have found one other exercise that makes my shoulders hurt like dips, and that is triceps pushups, where your arms are really close to your body and your elbows go back instead of out to the side. Almost the exact same motion as a dip, but done as a pushup. No surprise that it hurts. So none of those either, I guess.

Even overhead squats are completely painless. Overhead presses, pullups, and pushups are painless. All day-to-day activities are painless... So its only that one motion that hurts. I haven't been aware of any injury there. It hurt from the very first dip...why do you think that is?

amber said...

both of those are the same movement: extreme extension and internal rotation of the shoulder. Its not a strong position for most shoulders, and for yours, probably due to your instability of the joint, it causes pain by overextending your rotator cuff. Strenghtening of the shoulder joint will help, I think. Plus some gentle stretching of that area (don't tell anyone else I said this! lol) But when it all comes down to it, you might never be comfortable doing dips. But dips aren't that fun anyhow :)