entire body FUBAR

This is a continuation of the introductory post I made in the Getting Started forum section.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2611

There are four areas where I'm having pain and or discouraging reactions that prevent me from a lot of exercises and sports. I've been to several doctors and specialists and have had multiple MRI's and X-rays. Most of which are inconclusive or do not sow any problem. From the posts I've read on this forum already, people seem to have a lot of experience with physical therapy and rehab movements. I am not looking for an absolute diagnosis or anything, but perhaps someone has had a similar injury and can offer up some exercises/stretches that were beneficial that I haven't tried yet.

Left shoulder: when I hold my arm straight out at a 90' angle with my body and spin my forearm at the elbow joint in clockwise or counter clockwise motion I get a PAINLESS pop in my shoulder. When I do any lateral or horizontal pulling/pushing movements with a reasonable load I get some pain. This was first believed to be bursitis or a possible rotator cuff tear at first.

Left elbow: when i hold my left arm straight out like I'm holding a gun, place my right thumb on the medial epicondyle and then bend my left arm back so my hand is coming towards my shoulder, I get a heavy duty pop where my thumb is. As is a ligament or tendon is getting snagged or sliding over a boney area that it shouldn't be. The pop is painless but during exercise that area gets agitated and it worries me that it could develop into something serious in the future.

Hips, both sides: during any leg raises when laying on the floor, especially chinnies, my hips pop like crazy. This is painless but just as my elbow issue, it worries me of things to come.

Knees, both sides: rice krispies when squatting low and back up even with just my bodyweight. Slight pain is also present when going upstairs sometimes if I'm not stretched out, or if I'm running and havn't gone through a thorough stretchout.

I realise that some of these may already have been posted about on an archived page of the forum. So if I am restating issues that have already been talked to death than I apologise, I just felt that getting it out on a post was necessary for my mental sanity. Oh and all but the elbow happened about 3.5 years ago, if that's any indication of how stubborn they are.

Thanks in advance to you guys for taking the time to read this and any replies are appreciated.

Dinosaur said:

Hips, both sides: during any leg raises when laying on the floor, especially chinnies, my hips pop like crazy. This is painless but just as my elbow issue, it worries me of things to come.

This may be helpful to you or not. I think most people have a tendency to only work the hips in flexion, when doing exercises leg/knee raise type exercises. This can lead to tight hip muscles and a lack of flexibility and strength in other directions (rear lift, adduction, abduction). My right hip flexors are almost always tighter than my left, and when I do leg raises on the floor the right hip pops when returning it to the ground (sometimes).

It might be a good idea to make sure you stretch the hip flexors right out;

aim to get the hips open to 180 degrees.

As well as making sure you work hip strength and flexibility(i find some yoga poses generally relieve discomfort from tight hips - my favourite: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/863) in other directions. Try raising your leg to the rear when standing, keeping the back as upright as possible - very difficult on the glutes if you have never tried.

A bit of inspiration

Poke around and identify tight muscles and stretch them. These are probably locking up because it sounds like you have a lot of joint laxity.

Proper strength and conditioning will probably alleviate some of the problems you've been describing. But it's a case by case basis... no one here has seen you so we can't specifically help out with your problems (nor are any of us qualified to either, heh).

Dinosaur said:

Hips, both sides: during any leg raises when laying on the floor, especially chinnies, my hips pop like crazy. This is painless but just as my elbow issue, it worries me of things to come.

Knees, both sides: rice krispies when squatting low and back up even with just my bodyweight. Slight pain is also present when going upstairs sometimes if I'm not stretched out, or if I'm running and havn't gone through a thorough stretchout.

I have both of those. The hip clunk was helped by straddle split work. My left knee seems to have the rice krispies, or joint mice, and nothing helps it. No pain, like you. My knees worry me.

thanks for the speedy replies everyone!

I did run across this article on T-nation a short while ago, and plan on checking out some of his books/dvd's

http://www.tmuscle.com/readArticle.do?id=1127149

Nick, that was a good paintbrush picture of that stretch, I've been doing a lot of these and a few variations... they seem to help. The link below is the one I am currently focusing on.

http://www.tmuscle.com/img/photos/06-10 ... age023.jpg

I've also been trying another stretch out for the rectus femoris, it helps as well with the popping in my hips. Watch the youtube link below, it's the last of the three methods.

As for the shoulder and the elbow, they are much more stubborn. Tricep static holds with a straight arm HAVE helped in the past... but only very temporarily. Maybe a few minutes later, my elbow is back to popping at the medial epicondyle.

Dino,

I would highly recomend looking into yoga. I had many similar issues a few years back and almost all are gone now. I live in seattle as well and teach yoga, if you are interested I would be happy to take a look and give you some advice.

Andrew

That's a great offer AJ, no way I can turn that down. Yoga has never been an interest of mine, but I will give anything a shot if it means getting my body back in order.

Send me a private message with a convenient time where we could meet up. I work nights only, so I am almost always available during the day. I live in the capital hill area of Seattle.

Here's the link to a website with some excellent exercises for your rotator cuff muscles. My shoulders have had issues in the past, chronically like yours, and this series of exercises has made a big difference for me in the past week. I feel better each time I do it, and I can feel my shoulders slowly beginning to act normally Big relief for me, I was starting to wonder if I would need surgery in my right shoulder or not. Anyhow, here's the link:http://www.physioroom.com/experts/asktheexperts/answers/qa_mb_20050225.php

There may be other articles on the general answers page, http://www.physioroom.com/experts/asktheexperts/answers/, that could help you with your other issues. Between that and working with AJ, hopefully you'll be on track!

I checked out both those links Slizz, especially the first one. Many of those exercises for the rotator cuff where given to me by my second physical therapist. I put a good deal of effort into them without really seeing any progress. Although I may give them a second run through and mix them in with some of the scapula prehab routines that I have gotten from Idoportal.

The shoulder specialist I saw ran an MRI on my shoulder and determined that it is POSSIBLE I have a very small tear in my Labrum. However the MRI was unclear and there is no way to really know unless they put a camera in my shoulder to see. There is no real way to physical therapy a Labrum tear, so if that is what the problem is, I just have to suck it up and have surgery. I'm just trying to eliminate all other options before I take the plunge and get cut.

Yea, sometimes surgery really is the best option. I hope you find another way to handle it though! I don't know what your rehab routine was, but I have noticed that 1 set a day 7 days a week works better for me than 3 sets a day 3 or 4 days a week. The good thing is that if they do end up having to cut on you due to a tear, you're going to be better than you can remember being a little while afterwards!

Dinosaur said:

I checked out both those links Slizz, especially the first one. Many of those exercises for the rotator cuff where given to me by my second physical therapist. I put a good deal of effort into them without really seeing any progress. Although I may give them a second run through and mix them in with some of the scapula prehab routines that I have gotten from Idoportal.

The shoulder specialist I saw ran an MRI on my shoulder and determined that it is POSSIBLE I have a very small tear in my Labrum. However the MRI was unclear and there is no way to really know unless they put a camera in my shoulder to see. There is no real way to physical therapy a Labrum tear, so if that is what the problem is, I just have to suck it up and have surgery. I'm just trying to eliminate all other options before I take the plunge and get cut.

Should've asked for a contrast MRI

It was a contrast MRI. Still was very inconclusive unfortunately.

The real big problem with my first few cycles of rehab were with the volume. Since I was doing rehab for both shoulder and knee problems, I was doing at least a dozen exercises at a time. This was made even worse by the fact that my shoulder problem was never specifically diagnosed. So they were throwing a lot of general stuff at me. By the time I stretched out and got through just my knee exercises, I was already 45 minutes in. They had me doing about 90 minutes of rehab [stretching included] 5+ days a week. And when your working a majority of the same exercises daily, in very slow motions, it becomes very tedious very quickly.

When I try taking another pass on the therapy, I'm going to spread the exercises out better and stick to one, maybe two sets max, depending on the exercise. That should cut the time in half and keep my mind from turning to glue.

Wow. 90 minutes is ridiculous. My rotator work takes 15 minutes, max. That's if I'm being slow. It's 5 exercises for 30 reps each, I don't do the band ones because I don't have them available I've found that, the same as with the bigger lifts, more explosive reps lead to better strength gains. It's hard to be explosive with the rotators at first, and I still don't go all out, not ready for that yet. I do the first 10 reps with a 2 second hold, and then the next 20 more explosively, and I've found that my shoulders like that better. I still do all 30 slow sometimes, but usually I do the explosive work and I like the results better.

Contrast MRIs are awesome! I got my left shoulder done in Japan and the doctors got all excited because they had never had anyone as big as me in there before, so they had to use a 6 inch needle to put the contrast dye in. Well, it's clear, but you know what I mean. Whatever they inject you with. They pulled out this black leather case and were practically jumping up and down, and when I saw that needle I think I would have seriously walked out if I wasn't pinned under that realtime xray machine.

slizzardman said:

Wow. 90 minutes is ridiculous. My rotator work takes 15 minutes, max. That's if I'm being slow.

Hell yes! That's what I'm talking about. 15 minutes sounds great. I think I'll set my rehab routine up like that. 3 exercises for my shoulder, 3 exercises for my knees on monday. Then 3 different exercises for shoulder and knees on Tuesday. Then bounce back and forth from Monday - Saturday, leaving Sunday as a goof off day.

slizzardman said:

I do the first 10 reps with a 2 second hold, and then the next 20 more explosively, and I've found that my shoulders like that better. I still do all 30 slow sometimes, but usually I do the explosive work and I like the results better

I use a mixture of freeweights [dumbells with low weight] and bands for my exercises. I like the idea of moving explosively with the second half of the movements, once you've warmed the joint up a little. Think I will give that a try next time.