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Could use some help dealing with tightness/pain around collarbone/trap area

Started by Bryce Hewett, March 19, 2016 · 5 Replies · 206 Views

Bryce Hewett

Hey guys,
Alright so I've been away from Foundation/Handstand for over 6 months now with occasional workouts here and there. I just started getting back into it for real this week and while it feels great doing Foundation and such again, I'm having some issues with tightness/pain around my neck/collar bone area on my left side (which similar issues are part of why I ended up stopping in the first place).

I'm not sure if I pulled something or what since I'm pretty much re-working all the PE1's, and I haven't experienced any discomfort while actually working out. It was only several hours after that I started feeling it.

To give some more details...
    -Coming from my front side, I feel it deep within the area where my collarbone meets the front lower-left of my neck (mostly just tightness/discomfort here).
    -With weight on it, it's the worst (and actually sort of hurts) during movements involving scapula retraction (so for example, during the downward movement of sPL/PE1). Otherwise, without weight protraction/retraction just feels really tight...
    -The other time I really feel it is while raising my left arm up so that my bicep is right next to my ear (so for example like the upward movement of German Arm Swings). When I do this, I feel tightness/some pain mostly in the back lower-left of my neck across to the lower-right part of my neck and it sort of feels like my neck is being "kinked". Interestingly, when I lift both arms to this position at the same time the discomfort/pain go away
    -My left shoulder also always "clicks" (a feeling like it needs to pop or something) during these shoulder rotation type of movements as well. It's always done that though, so not sure they're related.

So, mostly wondering if anyone has any insights or has experienced this before and maybe knows how to deal with it? Part of me feels like I just need a thoroughly deep tissue massage around that whole area, but as that's kind of hard to do, are there any particular IMs (from Foundation or Handstand or whatever) or specific stretches I should focus on? Any other advice is appreciated, and thanks!

Mark Collins

It sounds like a stiff first rib. If that is the case you will need the first rib mobilised by a health professional. Depending which country you live in see a physio or osteopath.

Bryce Hewett

Thanks for the reply. Interesting, never heard of that so I'll have to look into it some more.

It's been better since my original post, and the more I try to get a feel for what's going on, it's really feels like a super tight/closed shoulder area is probably responsible for everything and is transferring that tightness all the way to (and across) my neck. For instance, during certain arm movements it feels like things are "catching" near my shoulder which is stopping free movement. The "clicking" (that happens every time I raise my arm sideways) is just more evidence of this as it's probably all of that tight connective tissue snapping back into place as everything moves.

As for the actual pain/discomfort, the original culprit (I think) was HS/PE1>iM and trying to do too much too soon... In other words I remember trying to start off straight from shoulder-width and really trying to pull the bar back behind my head, despite everything being really tight.

NOW, my strategy is to start off at a wider grip, get used to it a bit, get the lean down, THEN move my hands in maybe an inch or so and repeat... Seems to be working better (and actually helping with this issue as well)

Also, now that I've got finally some bungee cord, I can finally start getting into the TB Stretch series and hopefully that will also help loosen everything up as well...

Mark Collins

These are good. I call mine the meat hook. It doesn't have as many knobs as that picture.