shoulder soreness

I've been doing bodyweight training for about 2 years now and was really focused on handstand pushups, planche and iron cross. I also do olympic squats, deadlifts and the olympic lifts.' I've been making slow, but steady progress, I can do 8 sets of 2 full ROM HSPU's on a straight bar using a wall for balance and working on freestanding HSPU.

My question is, is it typical, with gymnastic training, to have chronic soreness in the rear delts? It's been months and I can only feel it when there is a load with bent arms, such as a HSPU or when I rack a clean and then OHP. I do not feel the soreness with straight arm work, only overhead pressing movements. I have taken a week off from training, doing nothing more than freestanding HS and the soreness doesn't seem to go away. I took most of last week off and this week only one short clean & jerk session, no HSPU or OHP and the soreness has't eased up at all.

Most of my lifts are increasing, so I don't think it's overtraining, I hit another PR in the snatch last night. The soreness is bad enough that it is interfering with my lifts. Any thoughts?

A good portion of the movements you mentioned really hit the anterior delts hard. But how are your rear delts in comparision? How is your manna work and front levers?

I can do a body lever, but on the rings can only get a front lever in a straddle with bent legs. I stopped doing manna work after I saw a post here by coach sommer (I think) saying manna work should be done after one has a solid straddle L. I can only do a 5 sec straddle on the floor with one hand behind me, still working on the flexibility.

It's weird I don't feel the soreness from straight arm work and pulls. I can do OAC and not notice anything. If I get on parallettes, and press out from a shoulder stand then into a HS, the soreness is intense as soon as my feet leave the ground. It's the same as when I rack a clean.

A week may not be enough. How is your shoulder mobility otherwise?

Your problem could be as simple as a lack of balanced shoulder girdle strength and flexibility, but that is an interesting issue to have. That one is outside my knowledge as of now. I think that you are MOST likely feeling stress or strain on the external rotators as they are the supporting muscles of the humerus during everything you mention. They are tasked with holding the ball of the humerus in position as you lift(along with supraspinatus, but I'm not sure how much that one works overhead).

You may want to steady state your lifting at your current volume and weight for a while so that you don't continually aggravate things and see if a month of rows with proper retraction helps, along with some progressive external rotations and scapular shrugging work. My last final is tomorrow and I will make a video about the shrugs and retractions shortly afterward. That will be part 2 of my shoulder video series.

Blairbob, I have pretty good flexibility and I have cut way back on most training the past 2 weeks, I hate having to stop when I've been making steady strength gains.

Slizz, the most intense soreness is when I rack a clean or the bottom of a HSPU, as I press overhead, or complete a HSPU, the soreness goes away as my arms straighten out. It's only in the rear delt though. It's really odd I don't feel it when doing OAC & OAP. I've thought about there being an imbalance as I've always been able to pull more than push.

I'm only going to be doing mainly steady state straight arm work, squats, deadlifts, and snatches for a while. Thanks guys. Hopefully I don't lose much pressing strength.

You should be ok using strong range partials to increase your strength in that part of the lifts tremendously, which should keep you from losing ANY pressing strength.