Shoulder Pain with weight training, please help! - General Health Message Board

********Man · 09-27-2008, 12:20 PM

I started weight training seriously for the first time in my life several months ago. I'm 23 y.o. and very slender. I increase my weights with moderation but after a few weeks of doing lateral raises, I started getting weakness and slight pain in my shoulders. I then took surfing lessons over the summer for a week and after that, couldn't raise my right arm up for about a week. Things started improving but I seem to have "plateaued". I am functional but still have slight weakness in both shoulders when doing certain movements, especially with my elbows out.

I saw a sports injury doc who confidently said it is rotator cuff overuse so I started doing special exercises 3x a week with a exercise band. These have given me a bit of improvement but I'm still not where I used to be. I have cut all exercises with overhead movements and am very careful in avoiding any exercises that cause pain in my shoulders. I even stopped working out completely for 2 weeks and had no improvement at all.

My question is, does anyone think this is more than overuse? What bothers me the most is that 2 weeks of stopping did nothing at all. Maybe it just takes months for shoulders to heal. The problem is I can't really stop working out because I am going into a career field where PT is crucial (I'm going to be tested on how much I can bench press, etc).

Thanks for any advice or help.

AnnD · 09-27-2008, 12:43 PM

It can take months for muscle healing to happen and it also may mean that you might have to wait a year before you try again and then ever so slowly. Sorry but your muscles just might not take that sort of repetitious heavy lifting...you may just have to focus on cardio type workouts instead of overhead muscle building type maneuvers.

MountainReader · 09-28-2008, 12:19 PM

I agree with Ann. Rotator cuff injuries can take a very long time to heal.

Keep doing the exercises your sports therapist gave you. Eventually it should get better. If not, you might consider a visit to an orthopedic doctor.

feelbad · 09-29-2008, 08:27 AM

the quickest way to really know for sure just what is causeing this would be to just obtain an MRI on the shoulders themselves and also you may want to check out that c spine area as well. since your symtoms appear to be bilateral,any c spine problem could possibly be the real underlying issue ya know what i mean? something like a centrally located herniation or protrusion within that c spine area could cause the types of symptoms you have going on so it should be at least checked and ruled out.

the thing here is,if you were not used to doing all that lifting and just kind of dove into it,there could be a herniation up there or you could just have in some way,damaged the soft tissue structures within the rotators. its just that this is within both shoulders that leads me to wonder if this is not an actual c spine issue too ya know? it just needs some looking into. what are your exact symptoms at this point? any neck pain or numbness or tingling in either arm,or fingers? FB

********Man · 09-29-2008, 11:00 PM

Thanks for all your responses, you have been so helpful. Yes, I was hoping that the rotator cuff was just taking a while to heal. It makes sense since I still have to continue the physical training I'm doing otherwise I risk losing my job. Things like bench pressing my own body weight or doing pushups are a must even though they cause me pain sometimes. So perhaps its these activities that are just not letting the shoulders heal.

But feelbad brought up a very interesting issue. I have actually been having mild neck pain and clicking in one direction for the past month. I had an x-ray done of the c-spine and everything is normal except I don't have good curvature in my neck. But perhaps the neck clicking is linked to the shoulders, although I still feel like there is a local problem with the shoulders since I get clicking in the shoulders as well. I'd like to avoid an MRI because of the cost unless it's 100% necessary. Given that the xray was fairly normal, do you still think an MRI would be revealing? What about an x-ray of the shoulders? If a problem is found, what can be done any way besides stopping the activity?

Thanks again

Quote:

Originally Posted by feelbad

the quickest way to really know for sure just what is causeing this would be to just obtain an MRI on the shoulders themselves and also you may want to check out that c spine area as well. since your symtoms appear to be bilateral,any c spine problem could possibly be the real underlying issue ya know what i mean? something like a centrally located herniation or protrusion within that c spine area could cause the types of symptoms you have going on so it should be at least checked and ruled out.

the thing here is,if you were not used to doing all that lifting and just kind of dove into it,there could be a herniation up there or you could just have in some way,damaged the soft tissue structures within the rotators. its just that this is within both shoulders that leads me to wonder if this is not an actual c spine issue too ya know? it just needs some looking into. what are your exact symptoms at this point? any neck pain or numbness or tingling in either arm,or fingers? FB