Thread: Shoulder pain

If the only exercise you do for your upperbody is benching than you're bound to get shoulder problems later on since the exercise can be bad for your shoulder joints. Putting a variation of the overhead press (db shoulder presses, bb military presses..) in ur workout will really get your shoulders back on track and is great for shoulder health.

I do more than just BP. I was just pointing out what makes it hurt. Thanks anyway for the help and advice.

O ok glad that i could help. Also its good that you're working on your abs too. Having a strong core can also prevent shoulder injury along with back injury. Focus on doing more intense ab exercises in lower reps such as hanging leg raises and janda situps.

lol just saying is this helps your problem in anyway.

Does overhead pressing also cause pain?

Sounds like you should most likely just rest it as much as possible. Keep training the other arm in the meantime. There is a carryover effect between limbs.

Overhead press hurts as well but not as bad as the following.

Flat BP, Incline BP, Decline BP.

I think I will give it all a break until the end of the month then work in to it slow and light and see how it goes. I guess I can keep working my legs to keep my core up. Cardo and Abs as well.

Yea cowpimps probably right. Just rest it for a short while and when it gets better make sure to put overhead presses in your workout too for shoulder health (and even shoulder size if you want bigger shoulders).

Also if you can get a hold of allieve. It is probably the best non-prescription drug to help with inflamation.

Originally Posted by Lost Grizzly

First off I want to say I have read many other threads about others with shoulder pain and most of the time your answers are “Seek Professional Help”. Well that isn’t that easy in my case because I am currently working in Iraq. I will be back home around X-mas and it might not be an issue by then.

It started hurting last month when I was home on R&R. I am pretty sure I know what did it. I was installing a storm door on the front of my house and was required to screw many screws in to the door frame. Each screw needed to be pre-drilled but it was still a pain in the ass to crank the screws in by hand. I know I should have used my electric drill. Anyway towards the end my shoulder started to hurt.

Now when I do flat Bench Press I get a pain in my right shoulder radiating in to my arm on the push.

What I plan to do is stop working out and do cardio and abs for the rest of the month and see how I feel.

Any other thoughts before I get back home?

My left shoulder bothers me. I started using DBs instead of BBs and the pain has subsided quite a bit. I also make sure I warm up my shoulders really well befor starting the working sets for any pressing movement. It seems to have helped me. YMMV.

Originally Posted by n8trick

Also if you can get a hold of allieve. It is probably the best non-prescription drug to help with inflamation.

Age weight, height ect,,,,,,, who are you

I read in a health magazine some time ago about BP form and how it impacts on shoulders. The article was talking about the obsession many people have with lowering the bar to the point of touching the chest and was saying that this puts stress on the shoulder joint and doesnt add anything to your gains. They were advocating lowering the bar only to the point that the tops of the arms are horizontal and not far enough to feel strain.

I have been doing this since and I have felt it more comfortable (though onlookers would probably say I'm not doing a full press!) and I still get the ache the next day when I've trained to failure but I dont get the worrying pains in the triceps and pecs during the exercise like I used to.

Im open to comments on this but maybe something else to bear in mind Lost Grizzly?

PS - you stay safe in Iraq ok?!

Originally Posted by CowPimp

Does overhead pressing also cause pain?

Sounds like you should most likely just rest it as much as possible. Keep training the other arm in the meantime. There is a carryover effect between limbs.

What do you mean by this?


And Grizzly, where does in hurt in your shoulder? Where the shoulder meets the pec or tricep? In the back of the shoulder? Near th neck?

Originally Posted by ForemanRules

Age weight, height ect,,,,,,, who are you

I'm 20 - 5'6 160. Name is Nate

Originally Posted by AKIRA

What do you mean by this?

By training the uninjured limb, it will help maintain the strength of the injured limb until normal training on both limbs can resume.

Originally Posted by CowPimp

By training the uninjured limb, it will help maintain the strength of the injured limb until normal training on both limbs can resume.

How is that possible? Since hypertrophy is the only means of gaining/maintaining strength...

Originally Posted by PWGriffin

How is that possible? Since hypertrophy is the only means of gaining/maintaining strength...

Haha!

Effect of one-legged exercise on the strength, power and endurance of the contralateral leg. A randomized, controlled study using isometric and concentric isokinetic training.

Kannus P, Alosa D, Cook L, Johnson RJ, Renstrom P, Pope M, Beynnon B, Yasuda K, Nichols C, Kaplan M.


European Journal of Applied Phyisology and Occupational Physiology
vol. 64, no. 2, pg. 117-26, 1992.


The purpose of this investigation was to study the effect of one-legged exercise on the strength, power and endurance of the contralateral leg. The performance of the knee extensor and flexor muscle of 20 healthy young adults (10 men and 10 women) was first tested by Cybex II+ and 340 dynamometers. Then 10 subjects were chosen at random to train using one leg three times a week for 7 weeks whilst the other 10 served as controls. During the 8th week, the tests were repeated. Both quadriceps and hamstring muscles of the trained subjects showed a cross-transfer effect from the trained limb to the untrained side. This concerned the strength and power, as well as endurance characteristics of these muscles. The average change in peak torque of the quadriceps muscle was +19% (P less than 0.001) in the trained limb, +11% (P less than 0.01) in the untrained limb and 0% in the control limbs. In hamstring muscles the changes were +14% (P less than 0.01), +5% and -1%, respectively. Concerning muscle endurance (work performed during the last 5 contractions in the 25-repetition test) the corresponding changes were +15% (P less than 0.01), +7% (P less than 0.01), and -1% in quadriceps muscle, and +17% (P less than 0.05), +7%, and -3% in hamstring muscles. The average strength benefit in the untrained limb was +36% (hamstring muscles) and +58% (quadriceps muscle) of that achieved in the trained limb. Untrained hamstring muscle showed better benefits in the endurance parameters than in strength or power parameters, while in the quadriceps muscle this effect was reversed. A positive relationship was observed between the changes (greater improvement in the trained limb resulted in greater improvement in the untrained limb) (hamstring muscles: r = 0.83, P less than 0.001, quadriceps muscle: r = 0.53, P less than 0.001). In endurance parameters, this relationship was almost linear while in the strength and power parameters the results were more in favour of a curvilinear relationship with limited benefit.

Holy fucking shit.

Nice followup P. I need to start bookmarking more studies.

Originally Posted by AKIRA

Holy fucking shit.

yup...it is neural adaptation.

the body is an amazing thing.

Have you seen the study where the subjects increased their strength by just thinking about doing an exercise, but not actually doing it? I thought that was pretty cool.

I have seen stuff like that.

If it is the study I am thinking of i think there was somethign wrong with it that couldn't make it generalized to the entire body.

can you post it?

Thinking? Oh come the fuck on now..

On the other hand, (possibly literally) this bodes well for unilateral movement.

So let me get this straight. A person can curl on the left side and not on the right, but the right will develop muscle mass? This is crazy shit!

Originally Posted by P-funk

I have seen stuff like that.

If it is the study I am thinking of i think there was somethign wrong with it that couldn't make it generalized to the entire body.

can you post it?

* Ranganathan VK,
* Siemionow V,
* Liu JZ,
* Sahgal V,
* Yue GH.

Department of Biomedical Engineering/ND20, The Lerner Research Institute, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.

The purposes of this project were to determine mental training-induced strength gains (without performing physical exercises) in the little finger abductor as well as in the elbow flexor muscles, which are frequently used during daily living, and to quantify cortical signals that mediate maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) of the two muscle groups. Thirty young, healthy volunteers participated in the study. The first group (N = 8) was trained to perform "mental contractions" of little finger abduction (ABD); the second group (N = 8) performed mental contractions of elbow (ELB) flexion; and the third group (N = 8) was not trained but participated in all measurements and served as a control group. Finally, six volunteers performed training of physical maximal finger abductions. Training lasted for 12 weeks (15 min per day, 5 days per week). At the end of training, we found that the ABD group had increased their finger abduction strength by 35% (P < 0.005) and the ELB group augmented their elbow flexion strength by 13.5% (P < 0.001). The physical training group increased the finger abduction strength by 53% (P < 0.01). The control group showed no significant changes in strength for either finger abduction or elbow flexion tasks. The improvement in muscle strength for trained groups was accompanied by significant increases in electroencephalogram-derived cortical potential, a measure previously shown to be directly related to control of voluntary muscle contractions. We conclude that the mental training employed by this study enhances the cortical output signal, which drives the muscles to a higher activation level and increases strength.

PMID: 14998709 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...=pubmed_docsum

Originally Posted by AKIRA

Thinking? Oh come the fuck on now..

On the other hand, (possibly literally) this bodes well for unilateral movement.

So let me get this straight. A person can curl on the left side and not on the right, but the right will develop muscle mass? This is crazy shit!

Not necessarily muscle mass, but it may become more neurologically efficient.

God dammit, I KNEW I was gonna get quoted on saying "muscle mass."

Originally Posted by AKIRA

Thinking? Oh come the fuck on now..

On the other hand, (possibly literally) this bodes well for unilateral movement.

So let me get this straight. A person can curl on the left side and not on the right, but the right will develop muscle mass? This is crazy shit!

"mind of matter"

yes, a person can curl only the left side and the right will develop strength. it is called the "cross over concept". It is the bodies attempt at maintaining symetry. Obviously it wont gain as much strength, but a percentage.

I don't know about developing muscle mass. I don't know if that has been researched.

yes, this does bode well for unilateral training. As does the "bi-lateral deficit". Which basically states that "the force produced with bilateral contractions usually is LESS than the sum of the forces produced individually by the left or right limbs" (Coyle et. al, 1981, vandervoort et. at., 1984).

Originally Posted by CowPimp

* Ranganathan VK,
* Siemionow V,
* Liu JZ,
* Sahgal V,
* Yue GH.

Department of Biomedical Engineering/ND20, The Lerner Research Institute, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.

The purposes of this project were to determine mental training-induced strength gains (without performing physical exercises) in the little finger abductor as well as in the elbow flexor muscles, which are frequently used during daily living, and to quantify cortical signals that mediate maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) of the two muscle groups. Thirty young, healthy volunteers participated in the study. The first group (N = 8) was trained to perform "mental contractions" of little finger abduction (ABD); the second group (N = 8) performed mental contractions of elbow (ELB) flexion; and the third group (N = 8) was not trained but participated in all measurements and served as a control group. Finally, six volunteers performed training of physical maximal finger abductions. Training lasted for 12 weeks (15 min per day, 5 days per week). At the end of training, we found that the ABD group had increased their finger abduction strength by 35% (P < 0.005) and the ELB group augmented their elbow flexion strength by 13.5% (P < 0.001). The physical training group increased the finger abduction strength by 53% (P < 0.01). The control group showed no significant changes in strength for either finger abduction or elbow flexion tasks. The improvement in muscle strength for trained groups was accompanied by significant increases in electroencephalogram-derived cortical potential, a measure previously shown to be directly related to control of voluntary muscle contractions. We conclude that the mental training employed by this study enhances the cortical output signal, which drives the muscles to a higher activation level and increases strength.

PMID: 14998709 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...=pubmed_docsum

yea, the fact that it is the little finger. it is so small. How much concentraction training would be needed to see the same effect in large, gross movements, like a squat or a deadlift.

It is a cool study none the less and does give promise to mind over matter and mental focus when lifting.

It is kind of reminds me of the book "touch training". Where by placing your hand on someones muscle as they perform the exericse (say putting you hand on the scapular as they row) was increasing neural output and the person could do more reps then if the hand was not there.

Originally Posted by P-funk

"mind of matter"

yes, a person can curl only the left side and the right will develop strength. it is called the "cross over concept". It is the bodies attempt at maintaining symetry. Obviously it wont gain as much strength, but a percentage.

I don't know about developing muscle mass. I don't know if that has been researched.

yes, this does bode well for unilateral training. As does the "bi-lateral deficit". Which basically states that "the force produced with bilateral contractions usually is LESS than the sum of the forces produced individually by the left or right limbs" (Coyle et. al, 1981, vandervoort et. at., 1984).

With all this in mind, what would be the benefit of bilateral movements?