My shoulder hurts when working out

Life Health & Fitness
1

Hi there.

Normally my left shoulder is fine, no problems at all. but when I try to do shoulder excercises, my left shoulder starts to hurt. Not my right one, just the left.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening? I know it’s not an injury or anything, it’s always been like this.

And also, i’ve always been able to self dislocate by left shoulder (like mel gibson in lethal weapon), so maybe that has something to do with it? Maybe i have weak left shoulder joints or ligaments?

Thanks.

2

[quote=“aceman”]

And also, I’ve always been able to self dislocate by left shoulder (like mel gibson in lethal weapon), so maybe that has something to do with it? Maybe I have weak left shoulder joints or ligaments? [/quote]

Hey aceman, we have something in common, as I have always been able to dislocate my left shoulder too. Not to the extreme like he does in the movie, but freely and without pain. But never expirence pain like you.

With every workout, stretching is very important. There has been plenty of times where I have forgotten and felt it the next morning. Also you might want to try to wrap it up while working out so it doesnt pop out. Either that or just don’t do it.

3

Which exercises cause the pain ?
Often it is caused by doing excessive or incorrect chest- the attachment of the pec is also in the shoulder. Try changing your chest exercises, eg instead of flat bench, inclined bench or vice versa.Whichever does not cause irritation. I had the same problem, I stopped all bench, and started light on the dip machine, and increased slowly.
Be careful with cable crossovers, instead I used elastic bands to squeeze, from thin to thick. I also found doing the sqeezes at certain angles irritated my shoulder. It took about 6 months to fully recover, now perfect.
Remember also to balance the chest by working the upper back and rhomboids.
I hope this helps, tendon injuries take a lot longer to recover than muscle.
My archilles will never recover fully, I will never be able to run marathons again, but can manage a good 5 km, and a 100km bike ride.

4

Is the pain in your joint or in your muscle?

5

You seem to have answered your own question on what goes wrong.

Find the range of movement and type of exercise that will not cause you pain and work within the limits your body is telling you.

Transisition is also important with free weights. Moving into and out of exercise position could cause you grief.

You may be best with machines and limited free weights.

6

I found that having a sauna after working-out really helped to ease the pain in my shoulders.

Apart from that, and this may seem a little weird, regular exercise also helped. It seemed that if I took a break from training (say more than 2 days), I’d start to feel pain around my shoulders.

7

I have shoulder problems on the right. Went to a physiotherapist when I was back in Canada and got some work done on it and a set of exercises to prevent further problesm. Much better now. I can play tennis or do weights without feeling like I am tearing muscle (I never was, it was all nerve related, but that’s how it feels.)

My wife has been going to Dr Mark for a shoulder/arm problem and has had good results. He is a chiropractor not a physiotherapist but he seems to know his way around sports injuries.

BTW most people strart to have shoulder problems as they get older especially if they have been active during their life. We almost all throw and bat and hit the wrong way so injury is inevitable.

8

Thanks for all the replies.

Just adding more info, I feel like it’s a pain of the tendons or joint of the left shoulder, not a muscle ache.

I can bench no problem, but when I try to perform shoulder presses or shoulder raises, either with machines or free weights, it starts hurting and will hurt for a day or 2 before it stops.

I’d really like to work out my shoulders (they are boney compared to the rest of my body) so my questions is, should I keep working out? Will I make it worse? Is there any way of preventing/reducing/curing the pain while continue to work out?

should I go see a chiropractor?

the pain is acutally not that bad, I wouldn’t mind working out WITH the pain…however i do not want permanent damage to my joint. Maybe if i contunue working out my shoulder then i’ll get used to it and the pain would disappear?

any additional advice would be appreciated. thanks.

9

[quote=“aceman”]Thanks for all the replies.

Just adding more info, I feel like it’s a pain of the tendons or joint of the left shoulder, not a muscle ache.

I can bench no problem, but when I try to perform shoulder presses or shoulder raises, either with machines or free weights, it starts hurting and will hurt for a day or 2 before it stops.

I’d really like to work out my shoulders (they are boney compared to the rest of my body) so my questions is, should I keep working out? Will I make it worse? Is there any way of preventing/reducing/curing the pain while continue to work out?

should I go see a chiropractor?

the pain is acutally not that bad, I wouldn’t mind working out WITH the pain…however I do not want permanent damage to my joint. Maybe if i contunue working out my shoulder then I’ll get used to it and the pain would disappear?

any additional advice would be appreciated. thanks.[/quote]

The pain won’t disappear if you are straining nerves or areas like your rotator cuffs (a very common area of the shoulder to injure or strain) or if your muscles are a bit out of place from old injuries. You see, we often learn to compensate for weakened areas by putting (unconsciously) more stress on another area. Over time this can cause aggravation or strain in the other area.

I suggest you see a pysiotherapist or sports medicine minded chiropractor like Dr Mark. It is sometimes so easy for problems to be diagnosed now and fixed.

An example: I strained my forearm two years ago from sanding walls for too many days in a row. If I didn’t do weights or work out my forearm I would be okay. Otherwise it would hurt and if I gripped anything tightly it would cause me a sharp pain.

I tried heating and stretches but nothing worked but rest.

Last fall I went to see a pysiotherapist. She was able to diagnose the problem as pinched nerves in the shoulders and forearm and gave me a set of rather silly looking stretches. I did the stretches for three weeks and I was cured. No more pain, not more soreness. It was that simple.

Since then I have had no problem with my forearm except recently when I was painting a lot. A few days of the old stretches and I was fine again.

I had other work done on my back and neck and had similar quick and efficacious results.

I went from thinking I had permanent tissue damage to realizing that I had just strained nerves and that stretches and some pointed exercises to strengthen weakened areas could make me as good as new.

10

Interestingly, I found that the pain got worse the longer the break from exercise.

I fixed my shoulder with accupauncture @ the Zhong Yi (traditional doctor). Best valued $100NT I ever spent…

11

[quote=“The Big Babou”]Interestingly, I found that the pain got worse the longer the break from exercise.

I fixed my shoulder with accupauncture @ the Zhong Yi (traditional doctor). Best valued $100NT I ever spent…[/quote]

I had a pain in my lower back that was like that. Would get worse if I didn’t exercise but better when I jogged and kept it active. My physio said something about exercise induced relief. Again, real work on the problem areas, which meant stretches for me (45 minute a day for two months) with twice weekly sessions fixed it up within two months. And this is a problems I had had for 6 years.

All this said, it is important to get the right physiotherapist for the job. The shoulder problem I had was not at all cured by 3x weekly visits to a chiropractor in Taiwan, nor by 2x weekly acupuncture treatments.

My physiotherapist in Canada was quite frank that they all have to specialize in different problems. She was great with the spine and neck and joints. She was just able to look at my back and tell me the two areas where I had injured myself badly over the years (right on both counts). She was even able to tell me that I had twisted my ankle badly the year before (right again) when she grabbed my lower leg to stretch my hip.

This is what a good physiotherapist can do. If you don’t get this kind of knowledgable feeling from yours, go to another. The field has improved in leaps and bounds over the past twenty years. In fact, the problem I had with my neck (fell off a bike when I was 19) could not be properly fixed before (I had received treatment). Now, it can be as long as the doctor knows how to release compacted vertebra (it’s a funny process where the doctor pushes the compacted vertebra into the other - as opposed to prying them apart - until the compaction just releases itself).

12

You didn’t say how long you’ve been using weights; what I have to say may not apply to your situation if you’re a very experienced lifter.

I have found that I damage my shoulder when I sleep. That’s because I’m prone to sleep on my stomach or my left side, left arm raised so that my hand’s above my head, which rests in the crook between my shoulder and my left bicep. Thing is, my fat head’s so heavy that, over several hours, I can stretch the ligaments that tie my deltoid muscles to my humerus. In fact, I’m fairly certain that I could actually cause them to tear slightly in such a way that the tearing was exacerbated by lifting weights.

It took me a long time to discover this, and another long time to fix it. I have finally succeeded in sleeping so that my hands are almost always below my shoulders. Once I was able to sleep this way consistently, the shoulder pain I experienced when lifting weights went away.

If you sleep this way, head resting on outstretched arm, then you may be damaging your shoulder the same way.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

13

I also had to change my sleeping habits… sleeping on my back certainly helped.

14

[quote=“aceman”]Hi there.

Normally my left shoulder is fine, no problems at all. but when I try to do shoulder excercises, my left shoulder starts to hurt. Not my right one, just the left.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening? I know it’s not an injury or anything, it’s always been like this.

And also, I’ve always been able to self dislocate by left shoulder (like mel gibson in lethal weapon), so maybe that has something to do with it? Maybe I have weak left shoulder joints or ligaments?

Thanks.[/quote]

I’d say rest it. Try the exercises after a month or so of rest and with a lot less weight.

15

Again I say, change your chest(pec) exercises.
Do what doesn’t hurt and increase gradually.
Do only very light shoulder, high reps(also what doesnt hurt), and increase.
For injuries that have a slow onset, you must be patient.

16

I had a pain in my lower back that was like that. Would get worse if I didn’t exercise but better when I jogged and kept it active. My physio said something about exercise induced relief. Again, real work on the problem areas, which meant stretches for me (45 minute a day for two months) with twice weekly sessions fixed it up within two months. And this is a problems I had had for 6 years.

All this said, it is important to get the right physiotherapist for the job. The shoulder problem I had was not at all cured by 3x weekly visits to a chiropractor in Taiwan, nor by 2x weekly acupuncture treatments.

My physiotherapist in Canada was quite frank that they all have to specialize in different problems. She was great with the spine and neck and joints. She was just able to look at my back and tell me the two areas where I had injured myself badly over the years (right on both counts). She was even able to tell me that I had twisted my ankle badly the year before (right again) when she grabbed my lower leg to stretch my hip.

Check out this site by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons which has a lot of good info about the shoulder (diagnosis, treatment, PT exercises, etc.)
orthoinfo.aaos.org/category.cfm? … y=Shoulder

17

hi all,

Could someone tell me where to visit which doctor who could help me on finding the cause of my shoulder pain? After the post done on this forum I guess someone should have info to share with me.

My shoulder hurt since about 6 months, I guess it’s Artritis or so but I am not sure.

Thanks

Marc.