Shoulder pain during Wall Runs

I started wall runs 3 weeks ago and I've experience some strange shoulder pain. The odd thing is that nothing hurts until after I raise my hand to touch my shoulder. On the way back down my shoulder has a strong pain, and it sometimes continues until I have both hands on the ground. Here's where it's weird...the last two weeks I felt the pain in my left shoulder, today it showed up in my right shoulder (and not in my left). Each time this happens I just slow my pace and push through the pain, after a few sets it eventually stops hurting. I know that pain is an indicator that something isn't right, so I wanted to see if I could find out what's going on so I can fix it. Thanks for the help!

You're almost certainly struggling with impingement of your rotator cuff due to poor stability of the rotator cuff and poor activation/mobility of the scapula.  Probably the best thing you can do is focus on a really good warm up and good strengthening/stabilizing work on your scapulae and shoulders.  The weighted dislocates are very good, and the band sequence in Rings 1 is very good.  Similar other shoulder band sequences exist around the internet as well.  

You may want to make sure you've truly passed the mobility requirements of the elements leading up to this, as if you haven't that is probably why you're still going into impingement even at this point in time.  I know it can be tempting to move on because the PE's look easy, but if your ROM isn't good you're better off focusing on the iM's.  

There is a big increase in load. Compared to chest to wall handstands which is 50% body weight, each shoulder temporarily takes the whole body weight. You could try just shifting your weight to the side so you take 75% of the weight. If this is still painful you may need more time on mobility and chest to wall handstands.

Good idea, i did the same thing at the beginning. instead of perform the wall runs i did wall weight shift for the prescribed number of reps. when it became comfortable i moved to wall runs.

All of this sounds spot on. I am curious though, could my warmup be causing any of this. Here's my warmup: 2x5 standing overgrip dislocates (15lbs bar, medium grip), 2x5 standing undergrip dislocates (15lbs bar, wide grip), 2x5 prone overgrip dislocates (15lbs bar, wide grip). I do these sets in between my wrist push-up series (5 sets). I only have a 15lb bar at my gym so I have to work with the wider grip presently to deal with the increased weight. So I'm wondering if my shoulders could be overly fatigued by the time I hit my wall runs. I could be totally off here, just want to be sure I'm not hindering myself.

Oh brother, from personal experience I implore you: do no push through impingement pain. I'm 11 months into trying to recover from doing just that, and I still have a way to go. No workout is worth a year+ of recovery.

rholmes75 said:

All of this sounds spot on. I am curious though, could my warmup be causing any of this. Here's my warmup: 2x5 standing overgrip dislocates (15lbs bar, medium grip), 2x5 standing undergrip dislocates (15lbs bar, wide grip), 2x5 prone overgrip dislocates (15lbs bar, wide grip). I do these sets in between my wrist push-up series (5 sets). I only have a 15lb bar at my gym so I have to work with the wider grip presently to deal with the increased weight. So I'm wondering if my shoulders could be overly fatigued by the time I hit my wall runs. I could be totally off here, just want to be sure I'm not hindering myself.

Try less dislocates. What level are you up to with the wrist series as they also fatigue the shoulder.

I'm at 5x5 on all the wrist series exercises except for the fingertip push-ups, I'm at 5x3 on those.

I completed two workouts this week with the wall runs. Both workouts consisted of fewer warmup sets with the dislocates and a restricted range of motion on the wall runs (I didn't quite touch my shoulders). I experienced much less pain, but it's apparent that I need to work on my workable range of motion under load. Thanks for all the help!

Alessandro Mainente said:

Good idea, i did the same thing at the beginning. instead of perform the wall runs i did wall weight shift for the prescribed number of reps. when it became comfortable i moved to wall runs.

Alex,

How did you do the weight shift for the wall runs? I'm about to start these and they are very hard, particularly on my wrists.  

Also, what distance from the wall should one be for attainment of mastery? I tried to look at the video closely, but cannot determine from that angle what distance one should be from the wall.

Shift your hips to one side and unweight the opposite hand.

At first you can just feel there is more weight on one hand than the other. As that becomes easy, then you can slightly lift the hand.

~Atticus said:

Also, what distance from the wall should one be for attainment of mastery? I tried to look at the video closely, but cannot determine from that angle what distance one should be from the wall.

If my understanding is correct. Our wrist should be in between 6-12 inches (15.24-30.48cm) away from the wall.