Hello guys,
So I finally decided to create a topic about this as I have been having issues with my right shoulder for way too long now. I’m not a beginner lifter, I have been lifting for about 5 years and I can say that I’m familiar with the exercises so it’s definitely not things like bad form.
Let me tell you how it started - I injured it playing football, suffered a sudden fall to the ground and used my right hand to absorb the impact, hence all the tension went through my right shoulder. Shoulder injured, I was resting, and then I hurled a pillow in a sort of across-the-body movement from the right to the left and I could hear multiple cracks in the shoulder and that was it.
I went to see an orthopaedic doctor and he said that fortunately there was nothing wrong with the rotator cuff, it’s just the glenohumeral ligaments and I would have to keep my right arm in a sling for 7-10 days, which I have done then. This was back at the end of April. Now it’s been about 2 months since I went to the doctor.
There was a period of one month since that consultation when there was no lifting or any sports activity whatsoever, only rest + drug treatment. Then I got back into lifting on 23rd of May and I’ve been lifting since. I could not say I had a great difficulty doing any exercise, but with some of them I had some discomfort / avoided them, such as:
- lat pulldowns - at the top of the movement, it was like I could feel the weight pulling my shoulder out of the socket
- chest flys with dumbbells - sometimes I felt pain in the shoulder towards the bottom of the movement
- dips - didn’t even dare to try them, I reckon it would have been a terrible idea
That’s pretty much, I cannot say that I felt really hurt during the workouts cause then I would have stopped. I did feel discomfort at times, but nothing too serious. Now the actual problem was when I was not working out, mostly when I was sleeping as I tend to sleep on the side and this is virtually impossible to do on the right shoulder - the pain will wake me up. Also during the rest of the day - pain was sometimes quite significant.
I have to mention that I have been using ice packs 3-4 times a day, one of which was after the workout - and it worked pretty well. I have also been taking glucosamine HCl and chondroitin, don’t know whether they have a huge impact but now I’ve stopped taking them for 4 days and without any physical activity my shoulder hurts. I tried to avoid taking NSAIDs like ibuprofen or stronger ones because of the side effects and because I have been on them long enough for my initial shoulder treatment.
Now I have been reading this article and put my shoulder to test: functional external rotation is absolutely fine, however functional internal rotation is incomplete - I can’t get my fingers to touch each other. Then I’ve tried the isolated right shoulder test - to touch my left shoulder blade with my right hand fingers, doing it behind the back. This is where it hurts and I cannot touch it. There is a significant immobility in this movement and I do feel pain.
The article is great, but it doesn’t say too much about rehab. I’m not too sure what exercises to use or whether I should actually do them.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.