Injured/aggravated my shoulder, help?

[Nav13]

So I have been doing the riptoes program for about 3 months now and last friday upped the weight on bench and seemed to have aggravated my shoulder. I had injured/aggravated it pretty bad about a year ago and and after that I slowly stopped working out. When I started up again about 3 months ago, I would feel a slight soreness in my shoulder but being an idiot I shrugged it off. The reason why I keep saying aggravated instead of injured is because I still had full range of motion in my arm, is wasnt unbearable pain, just a slight pinch when I would lift it in certain ways, after my work out on friday. The next day it was pretty sore, and now its just sore in the mornings, but no pain through out the day, although it still stings abit trying to do push up's.

Anyways now, I am looking for help. I was planning on taking a week off to rest and was going to start doing some shoulder exercises for a while and later on in a few weeks time start bench again but usings dumb bells for bench instead. I know the riptoes program stresses not to mess with it, but I figure an exception could be made here, or am I wrong, what should I be doing?

[kutt3r]

No program will tell you to continue through pain...

Rest - if it is still sore:
Doctor
Physio

Don't screw your shoulder....a 2 week lay off is better than a 6 month lay off waiting for surgery.

Pain is the body's way of letting you know something's wrong, listen to it.

[Gorilla]

My shoulder is shot, I can barely bench 150 on incline. Google rotator cuff exercises, they help but your shouler will probably never be as strong.

Opt out of surgery, I've heard of people not being able to recover a all.

[semograd]

It depends on where your shoulder hurts, just because you have full range of motion doesn't mean that you are not hurt bad.

I tore both my labrums in each shoulder and the pain got so bad that i could not bare it. I still had full range of motion but that didn't stop me from needing a surgery on each shoulder.

Be very careful.

[Nav13]

Yea I wasn't going to go back to my regular routine after taking a break to rest my shoulder, I was just wondering about what kinds of exercises I should be doing to prevent any further injury, but I did some research and seem to have found some good ones. Thanks for the help.

[Chris88CL]

Im currently recovering from shoulder surgery (sept 11th) and definately know your pain. I've been through so many specialists I feel like a specialist myself now, haha.

Be very careful with your shoulders. They are the easiest joint to screw up because the humerous isnt enclosed in a full cup like your hip is. It's held in place by muscles (rotator cuff).

Without knowing what the original aggravation/injury is or how it happened its tough to know what you may have done. It's possible you had a small subluxation in your shoulder. It's possible you injured your rotator cuff. It's possibly you have a small labral tear. Or it could be something completely different.

Dont waste your time going to a hospital ER. They are so busy the doctors wont do a damn thing for you and you'll just back up the system more. Go to your family doctor or a DECENT clinic and explain the original injury. Odds are they will just send you to physio if its minor.

Surgery isnt as bad as people make it out to be. The difference is in the surgeon. If you dont want to wait 1yr + for a good surgeon then you dont really have anyone but yourself to blame when it ends up being botched. For me it was an 8 month wait for the MRI then another year for the surgery with Dr J. Stewart.

It hasnt even been 2 months since my surgery (bankart and slap repair after labral tear) and I have full range of motion back but still lack alot of strength because my arm was immobilized for so long.

Definately do NOT just try to work through the pain. You will make it worse.

[semograd]

dont forget elastic band workouts. they strengthen rotator cuff.

[Gorilla]

Originally posted by semograd
dont forget elastic band workouts. they strengthen rotator cuff.





http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.myfit.ca/images/rotatorexercise3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.myfit.ca/exercisedatabase/search.asp%3Fmuscle%3DRotator%2520Cuff%26other%3DShoulder%2520Joint&h=229&w=300&sz=18&hl=en&start=4&um=1&usg=__Wd1Un0N1ceQEhnhSq8UPOXbcxMg=&tbnid=fb6yMJsOgKrVKM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drotator%2Bcuff%2Bexercise%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGLL_en%26sa%3DN

[CLiVE]

Take the time off and fully let your shoulder recover. Go to sports med/physio and work on rotator cuff / shoulder exercises if it is still causing you pain.

If you do end up needing surgery it is a long process. ~6 months wait for an MRI, another 6-12 months wait for surgery, and ~6 months until you get range of motion back. Further recovery/physio after that. I had a rotator cuff injury and 3 labral tears (front and back) thanks to martial arts. I had my last surgery 3 years ago, and still suffer from chronic back/neck pain associated with trying to stabilize the shoulder. My shoulder problems have been a struggle for the past ~10 years, it was at the point where it used to drop out of its socket when I was sleeping. Take care of it NOW.

[Little Dragon]

Don't go down too far on bench.
Just go as far as to when your arms are at a 90 degree angle, anymore and your putting too much stress on your shoulders.

Happened to me tons of times until a powerlifter at my gym corrected my form.

:thumbsup:

Get some rest, if it doesn't get better soon then get some help.
Rippetoe is an awesome program, I'm on it right now. Huge gains, just gotta eat right and have good form.

[Nav13]

Thanks for all the advice guys, finally went back to the gym after two weeks off and now I have a couple more questions. First off, does chin up's/pull up's put alot of stress on the shoulder? I did chin up's today and didn't really feel anything in my shoulder, but just wanted to make sure.

Second, what type of exercises can I do to work out chest, that won't put alot of stress on my shoulder. I really don't plan on doing any chest exercises for atleast another couple weeks maybe even another month or so, just so my shoulder gets more alot of rest, but thought it would be good to know ahead of time.

As for form, I never really paid attention to weather or not my arms were going past 90 degress, I just went down until the bar touched my chest, Ill look into that when I eventually get back to doing bench.

[signature7]

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