Advice for bursitis/impingement in the shoulder.

Hey everyone,

This my first time posting anything on the forum. I'm having mild shoulder issues at the moment. It all started last summer in 2014 when I was doing a lot of pull ups and dips on the rings. Was also incorporating a lot of static handstand holds and some handstand walking. Never at all in the past have I had any shoulder issues or pain while doing those things. Right around that time I decided to get a dip belt and start adding weight to my pull ups and dips and after about two months, I worked up to 45 lbs in the belt, being only strong enough to do roughly 3 to 4 dips though.

After about two months of weighted dips/pull ups, my shoulder started feeling pretty tight and stiff on a daily basis. One day I started doing some arm circles to loosen it up and felt something kind of "go out" and after a few minutes my entire shoulder froze up to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm past shoulder height because of the pain. Went to bed that night and in my sleep lifted my arm over my head and felt and heard a "pop" that completely took away the pain. By the next morning I had 100% mobility back with zero pain.

Right after this happend, I stopped doing the weighted dips and pull ups and after a couple weeks found the video on YouTube with Coach Sommer talking to the barbell shrug crossfit guys about gymnasticbodies. I bought F1 and HS1 and started the GST program the beginning of Dec. 2014. The weighted dislocates were really improving the way my shoulders felt and the stiff/tightness feeling in my problem shoulder, completely disappeared.

Right near the end of January of this year, I was installing a pull up bar in my basement. I had just worked out right before building the pull up bar station, so my shoulder was already fatigued before doing a lot of drilling. A few hours after that my shoulder "went out" again. To be clear now, my shoulder isn't dislocating out of the socket, but when it happens it feels like something is going out right under the collar bone in the area. Right around where my pec meets the top where my front deltoid is. This time it didn't pop back in though. After two days of not being able to life my arm past shoulder height, I went to the doctors and he put me on prednisone to decrease the inflammation. I went home and a couple more days after that, I was laying on my back on the floor and tried lifting my arms over my head. This was very painful but I kept lifting them until both arms were straight over my head. Once my shoulder was in this position, I felt it pop back in and just like the first time it happened, the pain was gone and my mobility was back.

I live in MA and about a week later we started with all of those back to back snow storms. So pretty much for a month and a half, I was doing a lot of shoveling and snow blowing. This obviously made my shoulder pain worse. Ended up going back to the doctors and he sent me for an MRI which showed that I have a trace of bursitis and a type 2 acromion which may be a source of shoulder impingement. The MRI shows no rotator cuff or labrum tear though, which is great. My doctor basically said I can start light shoulder exercises as long as it doesn't cause pain.

For the last two weeks I've been doing internal and external rotation exercises with a resistance band which causes no pain and feels like it's strengthening my shoulder. I've also been incorporating both forward and backward Xiaopeng with a 3lb dumbbell. This doesn't really cause pain, but more of a burning sensation when my arm and dumbbell are at the top of the movement. I'm also doing incline ring rows which causes no pain and definitely feels like it's helping my rear delt/scapular strength. What my shoulder doesn't like are push ups and scapular push ups. Scapular push ups is actually when I get the most pain in that front delt/right below the collar area. It's actually a sharp pain I get when doing scap push ups as opposed to the burning sensation when doing Xiaopeng mobility.

I would appreciate any advise on what's the best exercise for healing my shoulder. I feel like ring rows are good for strength and I don't get any pain doing them, but I'm open to anything else I can do to get my shoulder back to normal. Sorry for the lengthy post! Just want to get this fixed!!

if scap pushups are hurting you after a period of maybe two weeks of recovery and rest i would consider surgery. therabandwork is a good idea. esp retraction exercises. i would not advise doing dislocates yet it will probably worsen the condition. i have had impingement issues for the last years myself.

It's funny you mention staying away from dislocates. I did two sets of 5 reps yesterday. Haven't done them since the end of last year and just doing two sets of 5 aggravated the shoulder a bit. It didn't cause any sharp pains, but it did feel achy afterward. This was using a wooden dowel with a 5 lb plate in the center and also using a very wide grip. Dead weight body hangs seem to actually feel good in my shoulder. I'm going to incorporate them and stay away from dislocates till I'm pain free. Before my shoulder issues, weighted dislocates really improved how my shoulders felt so they're definitely beneficial, so long as they don't cause pain. I also just started theraband work and have noticed just within the last week that my shoulders feel more stable. I've just been wrapping the band around a support beam in the basement and doing 3 sets of 20 rep external and internal rotation. Being real conservative though and not using much intensity. Just enough to get my shoulders feeling really warm. As for surgery, I'm just doing conservative treatment. My doctor looked at my MRI and said there's nothing for surgery anyway cause there are no tears in the rotator cuff or labrum. Just a trace of bursitis. Even when I had no shoulder issues at all last year when I was doing pull ups and dips, I remember it feeling so good in my shoulders to just grab the rings and hang from them. Something else I read online that sparks my interest. There was an article I read that said when you injure yourself, even when the injury is completely healed you can still have pain cause the site where the injury happend is over sensitized now and the only way to "rewire" the brain is to slowly exercise it in the movements that your afraid to.

Would you mind to share the article ? Thanks.

Here's the link: http://www.knowyourback.org/Pages/SpinalConditions/LowBackPain/Chronic.aspx

This article talkes about chronic back pain, but from what it says about the injured area becoming overly sensitized to pain even after the area has healed, seems like it would make sense to any other part of the body. In my case, my shoulder. Pretty interesting read.

Hi Stephen,

It sounds like you have an unstable shoulder. This could be an anterior, posterior or inferior instability. Each of these require different exercise protocols.

Get an assessment by a physiotherapist/physical therapist to work out what particular exercises will help you.

Mark Collins said:

Hi Stephen,

It sounds like you have an unstable shoulder. This could be an anterior, posterior or inferior instability. Each of these require different exercise protocols.

Get an assessment by a physiotherapist/physical therapist to work out what particular exercises will help you.

Mark,

I think you may be right about an instability issue. I won't know for sure until I get it looked at by a good physio like you said, but my shoulder feels good when I do external/internal rotation exercises with the resistance band and those are good for strengthening the rotators. Another thing to mention that's interesting is the other day I was carrying water jugs to my basement and each jug is 2.5 gallons of water. Not super heavy, but definitely enough weight to engage some muscle. Any what's interesting is that not only did it not bother my shoulder, but it actually felt GOOD which is weird. I read that arms over head can make shoulder impindgment pain worse, so it kinda makes sense that holding something with a decent amount of weight to it opens up the space in the shoulder, if you will.

Hello all, It's been 2 years and a couple months since I started this thread about my shoulder pain. Wanted to share the great news that not only is my shoulder pain free, but it feels healthier than it did before the injury. 

I started this back in April of 2015 and it took a good 14 months before it felt 100% normal. This took a lot longer than I expected, but it took what it took. I started training Foundation 1 again one year ago in June of 2016 and stayed EXTREMELY conservative with both intensity and staying with the same preparatory elements for several months. For example, I stayed with RC PE1(incline ring rows) and HBP PE2(push ups) for 6 months before progressing. That might seem a bit extreme, but for me, I was so happy to be able to train again with no pain that I was imbracing the higher rep/lower intensity work. 

Fast forward to today and I'm back into handstand training and have been including shoulder dislocates with zero pain or discomfort. Extremely encouraging since, if you read my original thread, you'll read I was having impindgment pain from dislocates 2 years ago. The thing I've also changed with dislocates is the amount of weight on the dowel. 2 years ago I was using a 5lb plate on the dowel. When starting dislocates again about a month ago, I quickly realized it was too much weight. I was curious and weighed the wooden dowel by itself. Its about 4lbs, so adding a 5lb plate was putting me at around 9lbs or so. Instead now, I add a small metal ring which only adds an additional pound to the already 4lb dowel. For now, it's the perfect weight for dislocates. Enough weight so my traps are decently working, but not too much where I need to arch my back. 

Just wanted to post an update since my shoulder has progressed so much in only a year! I only count it as one year since that's how long I've been back training. I don't count the first year of healing. I'm 31 and can honestly say that my shoulder is starting to feel like it did back in my early 20's!

Cheers everyone!

Stephen

Thanks for sharing, Stephen!

Awesome work