My shoulder feels...better?!

[willstrickland]

Wow! After nearly three years of residual pain in my right shoulder, it feels virtually normal again. I'd tried plain old rest, rotator cuff exercises with a stretchy band, stretching, massage. No haphazard stuff either, very dedicated and very cautious...all to no avail. I thought surgery might be on the menu.

 

Then I started doing military press, incline press, bench press, and pullups in the weight room again. Eight weeks later...feels great.

[PLC]

You may have thoracic outlet syndrome; I had pretty consistent shoulder pain for 15 years and close to a dozen doctors/chiropractors/therapists before I went to the shoulder clinic at the UW and they saw immediately that I had two more ribs than a normal person. These extra ribs were cutting off the blood and nerve flow to my arms and causing all sorts of other symptoms besides the shoulder pain as well.

 

Anyway, the doctor's advise was to avoid surgery and just lift weights every other day for the rest of my life.

 

The one bad part is that I'll never be able to do more than 10 consecutive pull-ups because my arms don't recieve any blood flow when I hold them over my head (my pulse stops).

[ChrisT]

Are free weights as effective?

[willstrickland]

I don't have extra ribs and don't lose circ with arms overhead. And, it was only in one shoulder, not both. I'd guess probably not thoracic outlet.

 

I think mine was a combination of a previous sprain in that shoulder coupled with ten years of neglecting the opposing muscles while climbing alot. Simple muscular imbalance causing instability in the joint, that's my assessment...but I'm not a doc so I'm just talking out my Either way, I'm psyched.

[willstrickland]

ChrisT said:

Are free weights as effective?

 

How do you mean? I'm using free weights on everything except the mil presses, using a smith rack or machine for those. I guess I don't understand your question (or maybe it was a question for PLC).