Bone Spur

I’m thinking this would be the right place to post this, but I’m not sure…

My girlfriend has a shoulder she’s hurt before and a little while ago has found out she has a bone spur. Apparently it is rubbing against her tendon when she does certain things with her arm.

Not everything hurts, but after playing vball or lifting she complains of soreness. I’ve told her to take it easy on it, and try not to over work it, but I’m not really sure what to do with a bone spur…no experience with them.

After she went through her PT when diagnosed she apparently could go back to doing whatever she wanted, but it is acting up again.

Just wondering if anyone knows of anything to do, not to do, tips for training around it, etc.

Thanks.

I noticed you didn’t say which shoulder it was. This is important as you will see below.

Lets assume it is the left shoulder.

With a left shoulder injury, especially one in which the ROM is pretty good, the process that allows the problem to happen in the first place begins in the right foot, ankle or hip. Here’s a quick testing process to see if that is the case here:

  1. Identify the exact ROM (if possible) that either creates the pain or where it begins to feel stiff.
  2. Go to the right foot and perform three medial & lateral tilts. Make sure with this to emphasize the pressure back toward the heel - not up towards the toes.
  3. Repeat the ROM and note if there is any change.
  4. Do this again with the closed chain foot roll.
  5. Repeat the test again.
  6. Finally, repeat the same process with the right hip. Work it in all 4 positions, clockwise and counter-clockwise circles. Make sure to keep the pelvis in neutral and keep “pushing up” through the heel of the stance leg to emphasize the long spine neutral position.
  7. Repeat your ROM test again.

If your shoulder pain is a result of some biomechanical chain probs you will usually ID at least one if not multiple mobility drills that improve your pain or ROM. The only caveat to this is you have to emphasize getting the details right on the mobility drills and work at a slow training speed.

The reason that this is so important is that we are contralateral bipeds - right leg works with left arm and vice versa - during locomotion. Any type of immobility in the lower extremity can result in ongoing “microtrauma” to the opposite shoulder as it tries to compensate for the loss of energy that accompanies the lower leg mobility problem.

I hope this helps.

[quote]Atreides wrote:
I noticed you didn’t say which shoulder it was. This is important as you will see below.

I hope this helps.[/quote]

Thanks for the info…maybe I need more of an explanation, but wouldn’t this be more towards an injury other than a bone spur, more if it was sprained or something?

Or would this biomechanical disadvantage be the cause of the bone spur?

It actually was her left shoulder… she’s had surgery on her left knee, but other than that, I believe she is healthy.

You are correct, these drills are usually done for sprains and not bone spurs. However, I have seen these drills provide dramatic immediate improvement for a variety of shoulder injuries on a number of athletes.

The drills should take five minutes and the affect will be immediate.

As I understand it, the only permanent solution for bone spurs is surgery.

Try the drills, they can’t hurt.

Good Luck.