Shoulder pain over 40

[torp]

I was diagnosed with a degenerative left clavicle at the AC joint back in November. My PT told me that this occurs in about 90% of folks age 70 and up. Apparently my case was accelerated from years of doing pushups, and heavy weightlifting. She advised that all my lifts in the future be neutral grip lifts. After 10 weeks of PT, I was able to get back in the gym, and now do all my upperbody work with dumbells using a neutral grip. Haven't had a problem since then.....just for what it is worth...



torp

p.s. I have arthritis in the left shoulder, but 1 aleve every morning goes a long way to take care of the pain....

[JinnTonic]

got to thinking about this shoulder thing...i thought my problem was age, but now i believe it was something else...

i couldn't lift for 10 days...had a tooth pulled and i think the dentist messed up...i had pain for 10 freakin days...barely made it thru work...anyway, my shoulders quit hurting during this down time so i when i went back to the gym, i started doing all my over the head shoulder lifts on the smith machine...that was 9 weeks ago, and i haven't had any shoulder pain since...i thought that the smith limits you, but i swear, my shoulders look better now than when i was using a bar or dumbbells...

[dda]

Definitely have it checked out by a Phyiscal Thearpist. Had the same problem..could not do simply daily lifting without pain and sleeping problems. After visiting PT, he was able to tell me that it was not a RC problem and it was due to the nerves, veins, arteries being pinched by the traps and back musles that pass thur shoulder and attach to the arm. He recommend varies exercises and stretchng that I thought was BS but after about a month the pain was going and very thing back to normal.

[cyclesam]

Try glutamine. You must however get high quality, NOT GNC junk. And give it 3-4 weeks to take effect.

[akiraproject24]

Originally Posted by cyclesam

Try glutamine. You must however get high quality, NOT GNC junk. And give it 3-4 weeks to take effect.

DO you mean glucosomine?

Glucosimine with chonitridine and msm is great for joints however i talked to an orthopedic and he told me that its primarily effective with knees.

[akiraproject24]

I have not used this however thought maybe it would be of interest in this sticky.
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Therapy is for 21 days shot IM and can have the same results as Deca without the side effects...will tolerate a slin pin

[Fastone]

Originally Posted by cyclesam

Try glutamine. You must however get high quality, NOT GNC junk. And give it 3-4 weeks to take effect.

I have been using a MSM\glutamine product by IDS along with glucosamine for the last 10 weeks after a short layoff from trainining because of my shoulder and have had great results. I literally have no pain in my shoulder at all (knock wood) which is incredible considering what i have been through with it. I am able to do direct shoulder work which I haven't really been able to do in a long time and my bench is stronger. I am extremely happy about this as working out is my sanity clause in this crazy world were living in right now.

[Conan53]

I used to have shoulder problems. No more. I stopped using barbells. I only use dumbbells now. I was told by a wiseman, that each person has different angle of lift. A barbell is unforgiving. You can't change the angle as you bring it to your chest. I changed from doing flat bench presses with a barbell and started using dumbbells, incline and decline benches, and haven't had shoulder pain for 6 yeras now. If you're using pain relievers and still doing the same exercises, you're not allowing the damaged area to heal. I know it's tough not to bench, but..... I'm 56 and use 90lb dumbbells for incline and 110's for decline, 80 lb for flys.

[Bearcat]

I just read thru all of these posts. Been doing a good bit of reading after seeing a sports med orthpaedic surgeon this morning. 16 weeks ago I was on my last set of bench exercises and reaching the end of my limits when I experienced three pops in my left collarbone and a good bit of pain. I thought I could work thru it so I kept working out (although much lighter on chest) for 12 weeks but it never got better. Eventually I went to the orthopaedic surgeon that supports our high school football program and after a die injected MRI I was diagnosed with distal clavicle osteolysis. My choices were 1 - quit working chest, 2 - get a steroid shot in the AC joint or 3 - have orthscopic surgery. Apparently this injury can be caused by a lot of things. One of them as simple as sleeping with your arm under your head as I do, benchpressing incorrectly, or sudden shocks like teaching our kids how to be linebackers by demo'ng a two handed push on a blocker's shouldpads. Over time, the AC joint (connection between the collarbone and the shoulder) becomes inflamed and the body begins to reabsorb the bone at the end of the collarbone. The surgery removes the end of the collarbone and over time, scar tissue "rebuilds" the joint. All of the blogs I've read today say that 100% recovery from the surgery is possible but it takes anywhere from 3 months to a year to get there. The alternative is to have pain and eventually, lose a lot of your collarbone.
Enough history - I saw one entry that asked if it is possible to have a good pec workout with this pain. If this is what you have (and not a rotator cuff tear) then the answer is "yes". I found that I can still do flat bench, dumb bell bench, inclined bench and even bench on the stupid cable machine that ripped my clavicle in the first place. The trick is lighter weight and better form. I found pain free workout occurs when I stop the downward motion of the bench press when my elbows are level with my back. If I allow the bar to reach my chest I am in big trouble. What's interesting is that I found that my pec definition actually improved pretty dramatically when using this range limit.
Good luck - tell me how it works out.

[vis1798]

I had an incident on the pec-deck in January that damn near took me out, the doc said I had a slight tear of the ACL in my left shoulder. Back when it happened, I couldnt wash my a$$ without tears coming to my eyes, hiking up my pants caused similar pain. I cpouldnt bench 100 lbs without feeling like it was 500!! I was in a sling for 2 weeks, the pain just about disappeared. Came back pretty quick when I started lifting again, but still the weak stregnth, not as bad but still there. I chalked it up to weightlifting at 40 and trying to keep up with the 20 & 30 year olds. One thing that helped a lot was doing r-cuff exercises one a week. I stared with 5 lb weights arm @ 90 degrees, move the weight from belly out to as far as I can go. THEN, while watching a Padres game I saw the relief pichers working their r-cuffs in preperation for the game. They were holding upper arm 90 degrees to the body and forearms 90 degrees to that, moved it in a motion as if throwing a ball, also holding the arm out straight at their sides and moving the elbow from pointing at the floor to pointing toward the rear. I started doing all 3 with a 5lb weight before working sholders and the pain has almost gone away. I still get a twinge on both barbell & dumbell chest presses but no more weakness which was the problem that scared me the most. It took almost 10 months but I'm back to where I was before I injured myself. Hope that helps - BV

[joemomma]

Vis, with your injury, did it feel like a pinched nerve sorta? I have an issue with my left shoulder on occassion, especially when pressing, it's like something in there "catches", and when it does, I lose all strength in the whole arm for a second. Then it just hurts. It'll last for a month or so, then go away. Like you said, I can't hardly pull up my pants, reach for my phone in my back pocket, turn the steering wheel, etc...

[vis1798]

Originally Posted by joemomma

Vis, with your injury, did it feel like a pinched nerve sorta? I have an issue with my left shoulder on occassion, especially when pressing, it's like something in there "catches", and when it does, I lose all strength in the whole arm for a second. Then it just hurts. It'll last for a month or so, then go away. Like you said, I can't hardly pull up my pants, reach for my phone in my back pocket, turn the steering wheel, etc...

That sounds like what I've been going through all year. I push through the pain when benching, in fact, it's come to the point that I actually think I push harder with the bad shoulder. Probably from almost a year of compensating for the weakness. When it "acts up", I go through exactly what you are going through, sort of a dull ache that turns sharp when I move behind my back or a shrugging movement. I can say that after doing good stretches and rotator cuff exercises, it has become much better. I think I'll be living with it forever though to some degree.

[joemomma]

Thanks man. I always try to get them good and loose with a 5lb like you said, maybe I just need to give it a little more time. Mine even bothers me when doing curls, something about a certain position it gets in makes it flare up.

[vis1798]

Originally Posted by joemomma

Mine even bothers me when doing curls, something about a certain position it gets in makes it flare up.

Sounds like we have the same injury, I feel it on curls too, but not too much. Funny thing is that it doesnt bother me at all when I work shoulders. Did you do something to injure it or has it just developed over time?

[joemomma]

First time I ever noticed it was in middle school - something went wrong doing bench for football practice one day. There was a "pop". Off and on for years, but the last time was a couple of years ago in a car wreck: wife and I got t-boned, and I was thrown against the side of the door. It was pretty bad then, had an MRI done and they (of course) couldn't see anything wrong. It was bad then, I couldn't raise my arm out straight in front of me. This time it happened benching again. If my form gets out of whack, what generally happens is when straining, I'll tend to "drop" my shoulder, kind of like a golfer does, while benching. Sounds screwy, but it gets something in a bind and there I am.

[vis1798]

Wow, sounds like you did much more damage than I did. I was finishing up a set of heavy reps on the pec-deck and instead of turning at the trunk to set the stack down, I let the weight bring my arm back. POP and here I am. I would say it sucks to be getting older but you've been dealing with this since you were a kid. My doc said right away from the x-ray that it was my ACL.