Thread: Hurt rotator.

The first thing I would do is have it x-rayed and go from there. I hurt mine a couple of years ago , tried to baby it as much as i could but it never got better and stay that way. It would feel good , i would use it and it would hurt again.
Had it x-rayed and ended having surgery . That layed me up for almost a year before they would completely release me to go back to work and settle the workmans comp claim.
It's not sopmething to take lightly.

Gary

If you continue lifting with a Rotator problem, your asking for even longer down time.

Give it time heal, then rehab and start slow again with the excerises that put a lot of stress on it.

While it's healing, perfect time to work on your legs.

If you try to work through the pain, your going to end up in a hospital and not be able to work out for a very long time.

I ended up in the emergency room and literally could not move my arm for 3 or 4 days. I had to sleep sitting up with a sling on it was so painful. When you experience pain such as comes with a rotator injury, your body is telling something is wrong. Listen to it.

I'm A OK now!!!

I am negligent to go to the doctor, because my insurance changed this year. I used to pay 15$ co-pay and insurance would cover the rest. Now its 15$ co-pay and 250$.

Thanks for the replys.

Sorry to hear about your injury, PreMier. Hopefully, you won't require surgery.

I had a relatively minor rotator cuff injury last year. Like you, I did a self diagnosis. I immediately stopped doing all shoulder and incline movements and began a slow rehab with "very small" dumbells and cable exercises. Had to get to the gym at 5:30 a.m. so nobody would see me working with the pink dumbells. After several months of gradually increasing the rehab weight, I can now do incline bench and flyes as well as all my shoulder exercises, after a very thorough rotator cuff warm-up. As MrGuy suggested - good time to concentrate on legs.

If you haven't read it, Charles Poliquin's article, Serious Advice on a Humerus Subject, at musclemedia.com can be helpful.

Be patient and good luck with your rehab.

it sucks right PRemier?

my rotator cuffs always hurt, i think its from a combo of sleeping with my arms under my head as well as lifting improperly when i started (no warming up and benching with shoulders, not chest).

i have taken glucosamine, i guess it helps a little. test/dbol def. helped.

now i have to take 15 min to do very light shoulder warmups before EVERY warmup which i dont mind, i pump up all my muscles before my workout...

good luck bro, shit sucks when you do shoulders/chest etc........

Yea, I sleep like that too... I need to change I guess. I am going to pic up some glucoseamine chondroiten and a band and do warmups at home before I hit the gym. Cant afford to go to the doc right now

take it easy going back and doign presses. If you can't afford to go to the doc now then chill out becasue if you go hard again you are going to be up shit creek if you need an operation.

Well, insurance will cover all but the $250 like I mentioned. Just need to save up a bit and then go to the doc.

do more presses in the sagital plane to take pressure of the rotator cuff, things like neutral grip dumbell presses, either overhead or on a bench or incline bench, with your elbows rotated slightly forward, about a 45 degree angle off of your body. Not sure which rotator cuff muscle you hurt but this will take pressure of the supraspinatus, and usually works for people that have torn any of the 4 rotator cuff muscles. If I had to guess I would say you hurt your subscapulairs doing behind the neck presses. It is really easy to tear that one form that position, especially if you don't have great flexability or you are getting fatigued, as even the slightest move, could even be a couple of centimeters, backwards can tear it.

Its the one on the back of my shoulder. Kinda above my armpit. I am pretty flexible, but I think the weight was too heavy

yep, that is your subscapulairs.

pink dumbbells

That's funny!!

I don't like to tell anybody this but I got little blue 5 pounders specifically for rotator exercises that I do at home.

Rehabbing it correctly now and educating your self on the proper rotator exercises will beat surgery any day of the week. Do a search on rotator cuff exercises on Google.

Hey, sorry to hear about the shoulder buddy! I hope you learned not to do those exercises anymore!!! I've hurt my shoulder several times doing that, just give it a little time to heal and then start doing rotator cuff exercises and slowly get back to lifting light. Good luck!

I've experienced some shoulder pain as well. It's a good idea to take off 3-5 days from upper body movements and get some rest. Use a combination of a heating pad and ice packs (frozen hamburger wrapped in aluminum foil works great), and Motrin.

When you come back, focus on DB presses on shoulder day, and use DBs for incline presses on chest day. The dumbbells allow you to follow your natural 'groove', unlike barbells or even worse, machines. Once the pain has subsided, then start re-introducing the barbell movements, BUT eliminate behind the neck presses! Do military presses instead.

I thought that I hurt my rotator last year after doing a lot of shoulder exercises, front & side raises. I was sure that it was my rotator cuff because I tore the other one in 1990 and its never really healed. X-rays showed nothing but I decided to go ahead and have the surgery b/c I couldn't deal with the pain. During surgery the dr. found that "burs" had developed underneath my AC joint and dug into my rotator every time I moved my shoulder. 4 months of PT before surgery really sucked.

Moral of the story, don't assume that its the rotator just because you feel the pain in the shoulder area. It could be a lot of different things.

Take some time off training your upper body and ice your shoulder every day. After 1-2 weeks start doing rotator excersies. If the pain doesn't go away, get it checked. I understand about the insurance, but having pain in your shoulder for the rest of your life is worth more than a couple of hundred bucks.

Good luck.

Once you rehab, I would stop doing behind the next anything. That includes pull downs and presses. You can target muscle groups without needing these injury-prone excercises. Out of three people I know that have had to take serious time off due to shoulder injury, two were injured doing behind the next presses. The other one did it on bench press.

For now, take a week off at a minimum. Then start back with very light weights. Your goal is not to get sore or even get a pump, just to get the weight moving.

Something else to worry about,and i may have missed the mention of them in another post......bone spurs can cause inflamation and pain,but in many cases, after removal and a few weeks off, one can be back in the gym hitting the weights as before(though maybe not as strong...).

No matter what it is exactly,stay strong and relax for a while man! Take care of yourself man.

I say that if you are injured in any way, NEVER risk it unless you want to court a career-ending injury that could sideline you for life. Do you do Cuban presses and other rotator strengthening exercises? So many people neglect rotator exercises because of their egos (they look silly and are done with very light weight) and also frown upon other GPP work, but I feel it is essential for any hard-training athlete.

Peace.

Premier,, I hurt my shoulder last winter (february I believe) and was out of the gym until this past November 1st. If I could have lifted I would have but it was just impossible. I couldn't even do one pullup without intense pain. I was forced to stop training altogether. I was lucky because even as bad as it was, it didn't require surgery. I presume that was because I didn't worsen the injury by pushing myself through workouts. It is still sore from time to time but I can at least train again. I'd say to layoff a few weeks right now and then re-evaluate your injury. It's difficult for any of us to give a real evaluation without knowing the extent of the injury. With that said I again say,, layoff any excercises that cause you even the slightest pain for at least a month. If after that time period you may HAVE to see a doc and eat the med bill brother. Sometimes, those types of injuries just will NOT go away without surgery.

I have to agree with the remarks of firestorm and some of the other guys here. I've had some chronic problems that have required a lot of therapy and one cortizone treatment on my left shoulder.

My last treatment was in August, and along with therapy until December, I was ordered not to do any overhead movement of any kind. While the healing seems to take awhile, it's important to identify where the problem is and which exercises can help slowly strengthen that area. I am just now beginning to approach the weights I was doing last summer and have had to split my chest/back workouts between two days during a week - as soon as I sense it cramping up on me, I stop working the area and move on to other muscle groups.

Icing is really important, along with taking proper rest time and paying attention to form. If you have a lot of pain, the rule is to NOT lift, and when you start strengthening exercises, go all the way down to one pound dumbells if necessary. I keep one, two, three and five pound sets at home - if you don't want to do those in the gym, you can incorporate many of those strengthening exercises easily at home.

I know it can be expensive to see a doctor, and if you have to wait to do that, it seems better to play it safe and not risk causing any more damage. Take some time off and see if the pain subsides - if it persists, then bite the bullet and get it examined. There are a lot of different treatments that don't require surgery, but therapy can still be a long process.

This is a really common problem and it looks like a lot of lifters overlook strengthening this muscle group - I still wonder about stretching exercises for the shoulder area, though. Are there many that are helpful and effective?

2 things 1st to comment on the above post... I don't know if stretching excercises are good for rotator cuff injury only because when I went through Physcial Therapy they never had me do any stretching for the shoulder. I'd think that would be antagonistic to the fibers etc that are involved in that rotator cuff area. I still think the best approach is seeing a doctor and getting an MRI.

Last thing regarding initial posting. Don't do behind the neck presses they are very stressful on the shoulder girdle. Do your presses with dumbells to the side or barbell front presses. Peace.