Shoulder Problem's

8 weeks ago I injured the shoulder area while bench pressing. The pain seems to be in the front shoulder area.

I gave the whole area 5 weeks rest, but the pain is still there only when I go out wide, Say a bench press or press up. All over head movements such as shoulder presses are fine. Pull ups and chin ups and lat pull downs are also as if there is no problem at all.

I suppose my main question is should i carry on with these other movements if they don't hurt ? or will they be slowing down recovery ?

Thanks:D

Hi stew, you need to look at why you injured the area. It may be that other structures are becoming to 'tight' and this is creating less than optimal movement when bench pressing. The usual things that do this are to many over head type presses. I'd go see someone as rest will now fix poor mechanics. One session should provide you enough insight to work on the fix yourself. Without it you might just make it worse in the future.

Hi Bob

Cheers for that. Yeah I have an appointment with the doc in a couple of weeks :)

Oh yeah I injured the area when I was going fairly heavy on the bench and on the last rep I lost control when lowering the bar which hurt the shoulder area...Up until that point Iv'e never had any pain at all.. Don't know if that affects your answer..

Cheers

Well with the description that you gave, you could have had a rotator cuff tear.
This is a common injury of the shoulder and the pain is characteristically between normal and overhead portion of the shoulder movement. It is called painful arc syndrome.
The pain occurs during outward movement of the arms from 30-120 degrees of abduction of the shoulder.
I have put together some images and description in this article. You can take a look and it will definitely solve your issues.

Torn Rotator Cuff Muscles - Injury Symptoms and Repair

Also 5 weeks of rest is quite enough for soft tissue healing. But sudden stress can cause repeat injury. So when you resume your exercises kindly take time and add stress gradually. Initially you may just do range of motion exercises, and I think Physiobob may elaborate on that since I am just an orthopedist.

Also it could be worthwhile if u evaluate yourself by an orthopedist and get a USG shoulder or MRI to document if at all you had a rotator cuff tear.

Dr. Gauresh

hey stew
I think till today u must have consult doc or physical therapist,so just would like to add more for your good self, well my observation is ur ant.delt is involved and during eccentric form mean when ur going down during movement ; so ur more target point is musculo-tendinous junction so as this injury is old ice is not preferable but still i suggest ice becuz its best healing medincine.rest ur part I have added correct form of exercise just see to it http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6I0z_d4xqY
our main target is when when doing exercise ur arm will not decline much and just see to the video that where the position of bar n dumbell is

hey Stew

Coming up really late to respond to this thread...the above differentials you've been given by everyone are valuable and could be the reason for your problem...

My opinion would be that you may have injured the anterior structures of the joint with that last untimed maneovre...

the long head of the biceps, the anterior joint capsule , anterior deltoid could all have some issues...
You probably get too much anterior displacement when bringing down the weight on that shoulder indicating
1) instability,
2) muscle imbalances (such as some tight structures)

You may benefit from some taping to keep the anterior shoulder more stable when you do this presses...

if you are still getting anterior shoulder pain, then there truly might be too much anterior displacement of the humeral head...

if you have to train with those weights
my advise would be to reduce the reps you do..., to probably train with lighter weights,

a good exercise wuld be to use the other had to touch the front of the shoulder while lying supne (on your back), lift your arm up, if you begin to feel too much movement to the front bring that shoulder back and continue...you can include very light weights for this maneouver and do slowly to gain control...

always train with someone to assist...so that you dont don put excessive strain on that shoulder...