Tuck FL Shoulder Problem?

Something to keep in mind is that even emphasizing pulls will cause impingement if care is not taken to minimize internal rotation during pulling and focus on proper retraction with external rotation. Many, many people do not realize this.

Flexi, your FL is not retracted. Try starting from an inverted hang in the tuck, retracting your shoulderblades, and KEEPING them retracted as you lower down into the FL. Try and keep them retracted the whole time. Consider that your current position is putting more pressure on the AC joint, and that may be part of what is aggravating your shoulder. By retracting and keeping the scapulae retracted you will not only protect your shoulders from unnecessary pressure around the AC joint but also build teh strength you will need for later progressions.

Once you have chronic inflammation, it can take 6-12 months to clear up once you stop aggravating it. Seriously. If you don't have access to electrotherapy treatments, really good cryotherapy, NSAIDS, and/or infrared or ultrasound therapy you will have a hard time getting rid of the inflammation in just 3-4 months. The inflammation is by far the part of injury that takes the longest to go away, and that's the way these things are. I mentioned this recently in another thread, but please feel free to research this with surgeons, especially cosmetic surgeons. They will tell you that post surgical inflammation takes 6-12 months to completely clear up, though quite a bit is gone after around 4 months.

Knowing that, and considering that with plastic surgery you are just traumatizing the area ONCE, imagine how much harder it is for your body to get rid of inflammation in a shoulder when you're constantly using it. It can be pretty darn tough, and without a combination of effective treatments together for long enough it can take many years or even become a nagging pain that follows you forever. That is a pretty crappy fate in my eyes, so I believe in handling this stuff more appropriately and dealing with the annoying time off.

slizzardman said:

If you don't have access to electrotherapy treatments, really good cryotherapy, NSAIDS, and/or infrared or ultrasound therapy you will have a hard time getting rid of the inflammation in just 3-4 months.

Infrared such as infrared sauna? Would this actually help with the inflammation quite a bit?

FLeXi said:

slizzardman said:

If you don't have access to electrotherapy treatments, really good cryotherapy, NSAIDS, and/or infrared or ultrasound therapy you will have a hard time getting rid of the inflammation in just 3-4 months.

Infrared such as infrared sauna? Would this actually help with the inflammation quite a bit?

Slizz how effective is infrared and ultrasound? What does it actually do?

My only experience with it was years back, when i had insurance. I had a deep hip tear and went to a PT. Basically all they did was put the IR on me a few times and send me on my merry way.

The whole procedure left me very unimpressed as it seemed like they didn't want to have any actual physical contact in the physical therapy. But i always wondered how that combined with someone who actually cared would speed the healing time.

Flexi- i don't think an IR sauna will have the same results. Also sorry i didn't catch the obvious, Slizz is right you need to use your back more in the FL.

Ok, I'll be testing out the FL tomorrow then. It's too bad the IR sauna wouldn't help, seeing as we have one, that would've been awesome. Oh well, guess I'll be lookin' for some type of therapy that was mentioned earlier, if possible anyways. injuries

Well, I tried doing the fl again today, I don't know exactly what I'm doing wrong, but in my shoulder it felt weak as I lowered down, maybe it's just progression and staying above shoulder level for a while until my shoulders can handle it? On one attempt today I managed to get a flat tuck pretty much perfectly, it was leveled, my shoulders were back, and it felt really strong, but all the other attempts felt weak in the shoulders. So this is a bit irritating at the moment. Here's what it looked like for the most part today.

It sounds like fatigue might be a factor and perhaps just learning the skill of how to get into the FL.

Now that you have some reference to a 'strong' FL i believe it would be best to just drop out immediately when you find yourself in a 'weak' FL.

If its fatigue or general weakness in the position, its time to come out anyway. If its skill related, staying will just reinforce the bad movement pattern.

The awesome thing is you were able to feel the strong position. I don't think it will take long to get it consistent.

One observation, the ring set up looks much better than the bar. The bar has you so jammed against the wall that i could contribute to the poor shoulder placement.

And your shoulders are in much better position in the ring picture, good job! Compare the pictures for your self, though the angle is different, can you see how in picture 1 the shoulder look very strained. Not so much in picture 2.

However the neck looks strained, not bad or anything, but check for scalene trigger points, since you expressed interest. Its a very interesting area to do self massage on.

I'm almost certain it's not fatigue, I've been improving on basically everything in the last little while and I know for a fact I can't do muscle-ups if I'm fatigued, they're usually my tell. But yea, everything else I'm doing feels great, so it's just the technique of the skill, it's still a bit weird for me, trying to lower down and keeping the elbows straight + pulling the shoulders back, shoulders always give me the problem, quite difficult to keep them retracted. No matter what I never stay in a weak position, if I feel something going off I drop out. I was just never sure about the position for the fl and it never bothered me which is why I never thought much of it until I got this shoulder problem. Btw I never use the bar for levers, I just went and took a quick shot so I could post it up. Thanks for the positive comment, nice to know when you're getting something right, especially when it leads to injury done wrong.

FLeXi said:

Ok, I'll be testing out the FL tomorrow then. It's too bad the IR sauna wouldn't help, seeing as we have one, that would've been awesome. Oh well, guess I'll be lookin' for some type of therapy that was mentioned earlier, if possible anyways. injuries

IR sauna is great. It is hard to focus the heat where you need it, but there will still be a strong anti-inflammatory effect. Go check pubmed, there is good data there for you to go by. Basically they are saying to use 160 degrees F as the sauna temp and to stay in for 10-20m at first and work your way up to 30 minutes.

Cole: The IR and US(ultrasound) both heat up tissue. Ultrasound vibrates the molecules directly and IR light is directly absorbed as heat and penetrates between 2 and 10 inches into the body, depending on the wavelength. Near penetrates further than far, but even at 1.5-2" penetration you're talking about a substantial increase in bloodflow!

I too have been unimpressed with the LED IR therapy, perhaps because it seems to be relied upon as the primary method when it is used and in my opinion those LEDs are weak sauce. You have to check everything. IR, in my opinion, should be used no matter what but its place is as a healing accelerant, not a direct cure. You still need to re-balance and strengthen muscle, release adhesions and work out trigger points, and certainly scan for any bone deformities, as well as screen the posture and perform whatever manual adjustments are appropriate. Sadly, I think that will be reserved for high end private practices. Not much chance of truly effective holistic treatment trickling down to the masses, it seems.

Thanks for the info Slizz. Didn't realize the IR sauna was helpful in that regard, interesting as well.

Yeah my one time at the PT and is was just stick me in a room with the IR on me and set the timer, come back and repeat. I also was thinking this is ok, but it shouldn't the whole treatment.

Yes it really is a shame, and those poor schmucks wind up getting treated by people like me!

Well its become a real passion of mine to keep learning about this stuff, not wanting to be a snake oil salesman and all.

I've recently done some reading and testing on trigger point therapy, and I figured since quite a few people here are very knowledgeable on many different subjects that I'd try and get some more info on it. So if someone could give me their comments and info on it, especially on treating lower back pain, I've had this for a little while now, I felt it most doing weighted squats (obviously I stopped doing them all together once I noticed it) and other than that I can feel it when I'm sitting most of the time, not a pain exactly, I can just feel where it is. I've tried searching risks for it as well, sometimes I get a weird feeling in my head when doing some of the points around my neck, last thing I'd want is to screw more things up while trying to treat myself, so anything on that would be great. One last request, sorry for so many questions, but I've found most doctors etc to be quite useless around my area, and I want to find out as much as I can. So, that last request was about another injury I guess you could call it, I'm thinking it's more of a posture problem, or something along those lines. My upper back seems to crack quite often (thoracic spine area), it cracks when I straighted my back completely, or if I breath in deep. It's not painful when it cracks or anything, but my upper back is getting pretty sore just by itself. Thanks for all your helps guys, looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

There are nerves, and key arteries in the neck, so be cautious, but its hard to overdo self massage. Foam rolling the neck isn't advised though.

Don't worry about sounds in your t-spine, its normal.

Never figured it'd be normal for your back to be cracking constantly (I mean every couple minutes sometimes, depending if I'm sitting or standing).