I have bad shoulders.......

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was hoping someone had some ideas for my crappy situation. I have been an avid weightlifter and casual athlete for my whole life (22 years)? Right now, I still like to lift, but my shoulders are so fouled up, it makes it pretty hard. My left has had tendonitis and a motorcycle accident, and my right was used for pitching in HS. Both were probably damaged in high school by improper lifting and short rest periods. They swell up whenever I lift.

Right now, I have to do rotator cuff exercises in between every set to sort of “drain” the shoulder of swelling. This is working suprisingly well. But I am starting to wonder if I am getting good circulation or not in my left.

I’ve never had surgery in my shoulders. I successfully rehabbed my left once after the moto accident, then continued to lift heavy for several months and now it’s worse.

There is a lot of scar tissue from the tendonitis (Pec major tendon) on the left chest. (I can feel it and see it protruding)

Now, every time I play basketball, my left arm wants to sprain whenever I reach over my head.

I have slight muscle assymetry… my left shoulder blade sticks out slightly, which I’m sure has caused some of my left shoulder problems.

I don’t think it’s serious enough for arthroscopic surgery just yet, and besides, I can’t do any surgery for a while as I am studying to be a fire fighter.

I have researched Prolotherapy and found it was useless. I researched different stretches and they all irritate my shoulder and result in swelling, expecially the yoga ones.

What are my options? Should yoga help? Any non-debilitating procedues that could help? Rest has not helped, I’ve tried laying off the weights and it doesn’t help.

By the way, my arms fall asleep frequently if I lay in bed with my arms overhead. This has subsided tremendously since I have been doing rotator cuff exercises and stretches, but it still happens.

2

Hey, hauss. I’ve got complications from when I broke my collarbone years ago. Had to have it rebroken a few times, with some residual nerve damage and scapular winging. I also used to be moderately into weightlifting, and now have trouble lifting.

It sounds like you’ve got some of the same things going on that I do. I’ve been to my doc and done a lot of research (a good resource is Shoulder1.com) and most everything I’ve read/heard indicates that surgery is almost always a bad idea unless you’ve got serious mobility problems.

Have you been tested for nerve damage? It sounds like you may have damage to the long thoracic nerve. That would explain your arms falling asleep when you lay them over your head. I get the same thing.

I wish I could say that I’ve found something that works, but sadly I haven’t. I’ve been to a chiropractor and that helped alleviate some of the stiffness and increased my range of motion a bit, but ultimately I’ve still got some problems. I try to do my stretching exercises on a regular basis too, and that seems to help.

There are shoulder braces that are made specifically for scapular winging, and that may or may not help stabilize and provide structural support but I don’t think that would help with the rotator cuff problems.

Well, just wanted to share what scant information I have on the subject. If you come across anything further I’d love if you could share. Good luck with your studies in fire fighting!

3

You might look into something called Active Release Technique, which is becoming popular among athletes as an alternative to surgery.