Left collarbone

[Erik Sjolin]

A little while ago I posted a thread about my messed up hip, and I figure I should do the same thing again. This time it's my left shoulder, but it's a little different. I "injured" it while doing a shoulder opening exercise in a capoeira class about two months ago, and it just hasn't felt right since. I have the same range of motion as the other arm, it doesn't hurt when I gently stretch it, but it's tender to touch, and only truly hurts when I put stress on it (usually for pseudo planche push ups and the variations).

The affected area seems to be right on both sides of the collarbone and upper shoulder (trapezius, I think). This feels like something that can easily be fixed, and I'm ashamed for not dealing with it earlier, but I was wondering if anyone had some advice on how to deal with it (aside from the obvious of self massage and icing).

Thank you in advance.

[Blairbob]

Could be a slight tear. Best idea is to just let it heal.

Funny thing about tears and seperation is they can happen at any time and you may not know they are coming at all.

[Erik Sjolin]

I've been taking it easy for the last week (basically meaning I don't do anything that makes it hurt), and thankfully it feels one hell of a lot better.

Hopefully I'll be right back on everything very soon (because down time gives me the insanes. )

[Joshua Naterman]

Yea... ice, heat cycles along with fish oil and other anti-inflammatories like tumeric on food. Maybe even some NSAIDS for a few weeks along with the others, just to kick-start the process. Eating cartilage and gelatin protein should help as well. You can just eat the cartilage off of chicken bones or you can get plain gelatin powder at health stores, it's fairly cheap.

[Blairbob]

Yep, downtime will drive you batty. However, for some injuries, it's the only way to do it.

I've also heard bone marrow is good for rebuilding joints. Generally it involves heating the bones until you can scoop it out. A delicacy in some cultures.

[Joshua Naterman]

Interesting. Marrow is tasty, I know that!

One interesting thing about collagen is that there are 6 or 7 different types and they appear to be non-convertible. In other words, if you want to take in protein that will help your joints it HAS to be cartilage. If you want it to help the tendons it HAS to be tendon or ligament collagen. If you want it to help your skin it HAS to be skin cartilage. I was pretty surprised by this, but there appears to be a bit of replication on this in PubMed.

Commercial gelatin protein has a bit of all that in it, so it pretty much helps with everything apparently.

[Erik Sjolin]

Thanks for all the info! I really appreciate it.

The shoulder itself doesn't feel too bad anymore, though I'm still hesitant to try the PPP while raising your legs since that's the exercise it hurt the most. That and back levers (though that one may have something to do with it. Recently started training the full layout, and I have to have absolutely perfect form to keep it from hurting that area. Everywhere else is fine though, so I'm pretty glad I took all that time to build up.)