Shoulder pain

My 11 year old son, before I bought him the starter pack, was doing basic shoulder mobility drills, pushups, and planks, as well as some pullups. He is having a lot of pain in his right shoulder for the past several days. What should our course of action be? He is going to rest for a week or two, but we don't know if that will do anything. Should he do shoulder drills or just completely rest?

Shoulder pain is very often due to proximal biceps tendonitis. Make sure he is depressing his scapula when he does exercises like Push-Up.

Rest until the pain is gone. Then go back to easier exercises or drop the volume.

Until the pain is gone, you could keep doing some elements like FL/PE's, MN, SL, SLS, that doesn't involve the shoulder that all.

In a couple weeks when he starts back at it, be cautious with the shoulder mobility work.  Mobility work should be just a little uncomfortable for it to be effective; unlike strength work which is often a lot uncomfortable.  

I'm sure this is a really really really hard concept to teach an 11 year-old.  So it's up to you to monitor his progress and make sure he's progressing slowly.

Okay. So even the later Handstand PEs should hodl little discomfort?

And should he even use a weight?

Rest for a bit. Don't do any movements that aggravate the pain until it's completely gone. 

Yes, use a weight. Having some resistance is important, but it doesn't have to be much. For an 11 year-old (I am assuming pre-pubescent), something like 2.5# is probably a reasonable target weight; starting with just ~1# is not unreasonable. 

Handstand iM's should not be too uncomfortable [until you get to the later bodyline drills  ]. As others have already said, mobility is about steady, incremental improvements. 

You are attempting to move thru the materials much too quickly.  You need to slow down and follow the courses as they are laid out and programmed.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

What else is he doing on top of Foundation work? What exercises are painful?

Krel said:

Shoulder pain is very often due to proximal biceps tendonitis. Make sure he is depressing his scapula when he does exercises like Push-Up.

I think we need to be more careful with our diagnosis. His shoulder pain could be coming from anywhere. Sometimes it is due to depressed scapula and getting him to depress the scapula further could make the problem worse.

He was doing basic exercises quite similar to the first couple Pes of F1

He was trying to go as slowly and progressively as possible.

It is strange a shoulder pain in a child. All of my kids in the gym are following the foundations protocol, and aside little pain due to apparatus, we had 1 year of physical preparation without injuries. kids recover fast, really fast from one session to the other, so basically i'm suspecting what Coach Sommer previously stated.

I don't know. After pain stops he'll go back to F+H and do H mobility with just 1-2 pounds, see how it turns out. 

And what weight should he do xiaopengs at? just 2 as well right?

What should he substitute for the stiff leg windmill, given his current state of pain?

He shouldn't be substituting anything at all.  In other words, no upper body work until he heals.

Until then focus solely on core and legs.  Slowly.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

But for core, im uses shoulder. what to do? Additionally, my wife and I are doctors. We think he has bursitis, so we're giving him motrin and it should heal with rest and time.

Thanks for your time! 

It is strange to have pain with the early PE's if doing them correctly. If the pain returns when starting Foundation post a video of his form.

Which part of his shoulder hurts? (front, side,back)

GenericGymnast said:

But for core, im uses shoulder. what to do? Additionally, my wife and I are doctors. We think he has bursitis, so we're giving him motrin and it should heal with rest and time.

Thanks for your time!

As doctors it is important for the two of you to realize that you are not ooaches. Bursitis should never have become an issue at his level of training. Slow down, follow the progressions as laid out by mastering each one individually before moving on to the next.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Mark Collins said:

What else is he doing on top of Foundation work? What exercises are painful?

I think we need to be more careful with our diagnosis. His shoulder pain could be coming from anywhere. Sometimes it is due to depressed scapula and getting him to depress the scapula further could make the problem worse.

Mark is a physiotherapist and, other than Coach's experience, would probablly have the best advice here. I would agree that we should be careful since we really don't have all the facts that precipitated this event. As doctors perphaps doing a shoulder assessment to determine the exact nature of the injury so that you can develop a plan of care and prevention? You would understand a statement like " I have chest pain" could mean many different possible medical issues that would require very different treatment modalities. I have shoulder pain but my therapy is different than others here because of the type of injured tissues involved. Just doing random rehab would not have made the progress I have now. Given your talents though I'm sure he is in good hands

Additionally, when he does plank (obviously before he started taking rest), even basic plank and any kind of locked out stuff, he has some pain near the clavicle/pecs. Does this necessarily indicate tendonitis or some other serious problem? We don't know much about sports science, and that's why we ask. 

Side note: so even if he can do 15 reps of a certain exercise, he should start at 1 rep? Should he start at the rep count that does not cause him any struggle whatsoever?

im doing recovery and I only do movements and sets/reps that don't cause pain during it. If he is at the beginning movements of all PEs then I would say start at the beginning of those cycles related to upper body. It's a slow ramp up so he will get some recovery while not straining too much. If pain starts up again as he progresses, and he can't regress his PEs to do an easier movement, then maybe try the mobility only. If after a few weeks of no strenuous activity to the upper body and that does not relieve the issue then a physiotherapist should be consulted at this point to save him years of chronic issues.

It's possible your son maybe be going at it too hard, but it could also be the case that your son had this problem already from his previous training and GST exposed it. At least this is what I have experienced personally. If that's the case physio should be seen sooner than later in my

opinion.

Im sure either Coach or a GB coach will chime in here for the best advice. Maybe list the movements and cycle he's in that cause pain to better help determine the guidance to give? Hope you son has a speedy recovery.

sean said:

Maybe list the movements and cycle he's in that cause pain to better help determine the guidance to give? Hope you son has a speedy recovery.

I second it.

Main movements of pain:

• SPL/PE1 and anything SPL except planche lean. The odd thing is, when he does planche lean with correct form, he has not nearly the same amount of compression type pain as he does on a plank. This is quite confusing. 
• HBP/PE2 and sometimes HBP/PE1. Still confused on the form for this, will post a form check after his recovery.
• The other movements don't involve much stress on the upper body (arms), but he hasn't done much RC yet except for some pullups. We just got our rings.

thanks so much for all of your support! We truly appreciate your time and help.

I won't comment on the movements ( leave that to more experienced minds) but Its true that if you start from the beginning then injury this early in the game is not the norm, in fact I bet rare. Ligaments take a while to heal as I'm sure you know. Strengthening them is the same.  Doing 15 reps of an exercise demonstrates muscular strength but does not indicate joint health or its strength. The course cycles are based on ligament strengthening not muscle. It may be fun and educational to sit down and listen to the webinar (make sure your logged in when looking for the F1 webinar under courses) and podcasts to get a frame of reference. When you do I think many things will become clear to you that your dealing with now.  

The fact that your son can't do the very beginning movements for upper body means he will have to rest a couple weeks prior to trying again. Rest meaning no other substitutes like pull ups etc. As Coach said focus on the remaining movements for now. PEs like SL can still be done just don't use a weight for now if it causes pain. 

Listen to Coach Sommer when he says to stop for now, rest for a few weeks (meaning no other strenuous exercise that could still aggravate it), then I think start from the beginning only because he is coming back from injury. He's young and has plenty of time to make up any restart he does.

If you feel your son has mastered certain movements then ensure he has by posting form check vids and getting the thumbs up from the GB coaches here. Or better yet post some that he's currently working on to make sure your starting off right. This is the best I can offer with what my journey has taught me here.  If Coach or any other GB coaches contradict anything I said then follow that advice first and foremost. Good luck!