Shoulders and Forearms

[Erik Sjolin]

I'm not entirely certain if this is the right place to ask this, but it does have to do with my joints in some respects. I recently got a pair of rings and have been going absolutely postal on my workouts with them, incorporating them into pretty much everything I do. Unfortunately, the back of my right shoulder now is in so much pain that I cannot hold a support, and it's difficult to grip things due to my left forearm.

What sort of things would I have to do to heal the fastest, or is this just something I need to work through? I read something about wrist splints (the pain is closer to the elbow than the wrist), but I'm thinking if I just work the antagonist muscle group as well it should balance things out.

[Andrew Browne]

Here is half of the answer: If it hurts, don't do it, especially with shoulders (I tried to "work through it" and it set me back several months). You should stop doing things that cause pain before they reach such severity. You increased your activity too quickly.

[Erik Sjolin]

Well, shoulder pain is now gone (slowly working back into the support position), but the forearm is still the same. I think it's linked to both handstand and back lever work, so I'm working on changing hand position to something less strenuous for those (palms up for back lever helps a bit), but are there any prehab exercises I can do for my elbows and forearms? Apologies if I already asked this in the opening post.

[Amebix138]

I use a rice bucket, 2x50 closed fist rotation at the end of every workout (3x a week). Seems to work pretty well, dont really get much forearm pain but I have seen about 1/3 of an inch growth on my forearms in about 2 months, which for me is not too shabby.

[Erik Sjolin]

I use a rice bucket, 2x50 closed fist rotation at the end of every workout.

Sounds like a good idea. I just have two questions about it. First; is a rice bucket what I think it is (that being a bucket of rice), and second; closed fist rotations, if I remember correctly are when you hold the weight up parallel to the floor and rotate from palm up to palm down, right?

[Amebix138]

Yes, its a bucket of rice although I just do it out of the bag it came in. I stick my hand in deep and then rotate like you described, palms up and then down. I count the reps like palms up - 1 palms down - 2 (if I didnt 2x50 would probably kill me). Theres no holding of the weight parallel though as you keep the rice on the floor or in my case my bed (I do it with a 90 degree bend in my arms as I find straight arm painfull for my shoulders), but im sure you already know that.

[jl5555]

Over the past month or so I also experienced similar issues in my forearms and wrists. It was just a dull affectation of the area, not pain per se. I definately thought it was from overuse of joints, muscles, connecting tissue that just weren't used to the effort, not that I was going "postal" or anything but it was certainly more than before. I was talking with a friend about it and she suggested pressure point manipulation. Bingo! That, along with some MFR, myofascial release using a ball or roller, water jet pressure in the jacuzzi, and self massage has really helped a lot! The forearms have the advantage of being easily accesible to the opposing hand so self massage is easy and feels great.