Shoulder Pain

Sorry for vague title, but I don't know how else to describe it, which is why I'm posting in the first place.

This is a lot to read, but I'd really like to know what's wrong, so I've provided a lot of detail (skip it if you don't need it, tell me if it's not enough).

5 days ago I was doing a tuck planche set, my usual 8 sec. When I relaxed, I felt some pain in my right shoulder, somewhere in the middle/rear delt area. I usually feel some unpleasantness/pain in that area when I release from planche; I just assumed this was because my shoulder girdle was not used to the my full body weight yet. But this pain was different in that when I tried planche again, it immediately came. I still had no pain during dips. During the warm up, I performed a bad forward roll (martial arts, not gymnastics) and hit the shoulder that's causing me pain, but I'm not sure that is what caused it.

2 days later I decided to skip the static holds, because planche was really bothering me and front lever was a little uncomfortable. I did a few things different than usual. I did Ido's shoulder routine, which was a little uncomfortable on the afflicted shoulder, and I did 3x5 dips (i usually do band assisted dips) and 3x5 pull ups (I usually can only do 3-4 per set), which, in hindsight was probably a bad idea. Later that day, I noticed the pain was spreading to other movements involving my delts. I thought maybe it had something to do with my rotator cuff.

So the symptoms since then have been: any lifting of my arm while loaded hurts, usually after the load of gone. Any support position hurts. The pain is like a tiny ache, then a big ache when the load is gone, and a heavier load hurts proportianately more than a smaller load. Pull ups hurt a little, nothing like planche, front lever is only moderately uncomfortable. Handstands don't hurt. The push up like position before a kick up to handstand does.

I don't know what the problem is, but I have an idea as to the general solution. Lay off all upper body work until I have no pain, then lay off another day or 2. I'm curious as whether I should do Ido's Shoulder routine with a really light band to stimulate the area.

Generally, pain from the posterior side of the shoulder indicates instability in which case you would want to do RC exercises and ice.

Gymnastics and lifting (if you did some beforehand like focusing on beach muscles) tend to give more anterior development = shoulder imbalances. Need to develop posterior shoulder strength and stability.

Otherwise, probably something along the lines of overuse if it's not instability.

Thanks for the reply.

I kind of doubt that there could be a major imbalance in the delt because I don't think I've trained long enough to develop either side very much. I can only do 6 or 7 dips, and have been working on the planche and the other static holds for a couple months, but rather sporadicaly until recently. However, somewhere I read that pain when throwing is a sign of shoulder instability, and I have always hated throwing baseballs and similar objects. Based on what you've said, this pain is probably a inflamation caused by a combination of too much, too fast on weak stabalizers, and hopefully a little ice and time will heal what ever injury has occured.

What are your recommendations to prevent future problems? I'm beginning to consider it wise to become profecient in pseudo planche push ups before continuing any planche trianing. I'm also definately going to include Ido's shoulder routine as part of my regular prehab. Would high rep lateral raises do much good? I'm curious as to how coach sommer's gymnasts/gymnasts in general avoid developing imbalances between the anterior and lateral/posterior sides of the delt. The only obvious training for that area seems to be the inverted cross. Perhaps, for most, general work on the rings is enough :?: .

Horizontal pulling and external rotator cuff work

Pushing tends to exacerbate the condition. Vertical pulling generally does not help much at all either since lats are internal rotators of the shoulder.

Thanks