Any suggestions Vickie?

Vickie On Vacation
 

Vickie is on vacation with limited, dial-up only computer access. She PMed me last night and said it took her seven minutes to download the most recent thread! She'll be back on the 17th.

I'm definitely no expert-but I know so many people who have had similar problems - the common denominator -NEWBORN....honestly!-plus new job....stress and diapers will do it!

**update***
 

Well it's been over 2 months with this shoulder problem. However, last Saturday I was asked to throw a baseball around with some family members. I was hesitant at first but then decided what the heck, I'll try it. Since then, I have almost NO pain. The most consecutive days pain free in over 2 months. Can anyone explain this? Should I now start those excercises that Vickie gave to marty? Thanks again!

Well I started those exercises and made up my own. Thinking that playing baseball helped my shoulder, I've been throwing a tennis ball at the wall. Not hard but I nice little toss. So far so good, I've also been taking 4 ibuprofen a day. 2 in the morning and 2 at night. Another thing I've been doing is that I'm not sleeping on my right side. Not sure what is helping what but it seems to be getting better. Definitely not normal but hopefully on it's way. Any suggestions are welcomed. Thanks

Yea! Good news is always welcome. It is true that the body is a self regenerating system, be it sometimes for better or worse, and you experienced the best case scenario. You were right to use your intuition to expand the work. I have some other exercises that work on depression of the humerus (arm bone) But want you to be in your workout protocol for atleast 10-14 days before you start changing the information flow. I must admit I cringed a little when you said you were throwing the ball even lightly; it's just so easy to start increasing the intensity without realizing. The next phase, in my recommendation will be to add some modified golf action in with the new exercises to come. I am also a little concerned about the anti-inflammatory. I have had some good fortune in beginning to reduce the morning dosage first; assuming that the day can still create inflammatory conditions that might cause reoccurent night time discomfort.

Keep refining your stretches and exercises to great precision to get into the deep tissue of your motions. Keep the motions slow and please still allow yourself plenty of rest. You've waited this long so re-enter with the same patience.

Sounds good. I will collect these exercises and be prepared to supply them to you within a few days. Which exercises are you doing, what did you add, and are any of them difficult or confusing.

I'm a big believer in full recovery and see it so often I am pretty committed to reevaluating frequently; even well after all the symptoms have given you the impression you're healed. It is at this time that you can really begin your rehab and insure no further problems by finding the origin and attacking it with maticulous consideration.

Sorry to have been gone so long. Thank goodness this site has so many qualified participants that care about everyone's success. Look forward to hearing from you.

Vickie

Glad you are back!!
 

Ok...let's get down to business. I'm doing exactly what you gave Marty and then just the ball toss which I will stop ASAP if you want me to. I guess the only thing I'm not doing is the Standing Abduction Band Stretch, having a hard time visualizing it. I'm also trying to correct my posture, would the posture setup cause my traps to be sore if I'm not used to that position? The other day they killed!!! I'll be honest, I haven't done the exercises every day but I try not to skip any. One question, do I only do 1 set for each?

Looking forward to working with you and getting this corrected. Hope Lynn is compensating you for all your hard work:smile:

Thanks

Not Happy!
 

Ok now I'm bummed. Woke up this morning and my shoulder hurts again. Pretty bad too. The thing is, I haven't done anything in like 2 days. Not sure if I slept on it wrong or because I haven't taken any ibuprofen in a couple of days or what. This is also the first time that I can remember that the pain was on the outside of my shoulder. Other times it was very hard to pinpoint, my guess was the front of my shoulder. Outside = rotator cuff right? Was :) now :???: !

**Edit** Maybe it's not on the outside, it's so hard to tell. I rub my fingers over my shoulder and I can feel something. Not sure, gonna go down some ibuprofen.

Hi Curtis, Thanks for staying in the process. You may have read on some of the other posts that I consider myself more a fitness tutor than a personal trainer. This means, for myself and my clients, that I teach exercise protocols specific to the individual with a great deal of focus on detailed mechanics of individual physical attributes. Unlike most 'trainers' who will take a client through a full workout the very first day, it's not uncommon for my private clients to only learn 3-4 resistence movements the first workout along with 2-3 flexibility movements and then a little real life movement therapy (occupation therapy like proper way to stand when walking or getting out of a chair or sitting at and placement of their computer). It often takes the full first month before they have a full workout program. The reason for this is that my 'people' are all adults with misalignments inherent in living a life that tends to over emphasize postures that encourage rounded shoulders. Look at our favorite positions, golf, reading, sitting at a computer (I sit straight, BTW), driving, even giving a hug. Most of us spend little if any time coming back into a fully prone position. No even in sleep most of us wind up laying on a shoulder or curling up.

The good news is that it takes only a little time everyday to counteract the daily postures with training, in all it's various forms, as long as the execution is correct. All of this to say that posture is the secret. So if your posture is off and your cervical vertebrae (your neck) have adapted to a position forward of it's appropriate alignment with the trunk vertebrae over a slow number of years, then the rapid correction of training will create a new, though preferable, stress that will require more work in the neck muscles (and the traps are primary) and they may show signs of soreness and/or fatigue as they take on the newly acquired work load. A silly example is how new Mother's can carry a baby around on their hip all day with seeming ease. Then one of us try to carry the baby for an hour and can't believe how tired our arms and shoulders get.The new Mom was tired also, at first, but continued the new work load out of necessity and eventually adapted both muscularly and structurally. Many of the women I have trained have addressed hip issues and the origin can chart back to raising the babies. Told you it was silly.

Anyway . . . Your difficulty with the abduction exercise is understandable. The advantage I have one on one is that I can tweek the degree of movement to the specific action of an individuals shoulder alignment to get maximal incorporation and thereby increase 'access' to the focal muscle. The movement can still be beneficial but with less satisfaction if you don't know how to make the body alignment compatible with the joint action. So I will try to tweek this one exercise here for you.

First of all you have to establish standard form to do this, and all, exercise. You should feel very "soldieresque" in this position and you should feel your neck really pulled back and your shoulders back and dropped. Make sure your low back is not over arched but feel like you are slightly sitting in your heels, just slightly - not a squat.

I'm changing the words and even positioning for you, as I know a little about your condition, so don't be surprised.If you can face a mirror, all the better. Tie a knot in each end of your band, use a therapy band (like a wide strip of ballon type texture) not surgical tubing. Start with a really light resistence. Once you get the form and the joint position improves you can start to strengthen. Why strengthen an unproductive apparatus?

Standing Abduction Band Stretch

Standard Form facing a mirror.
Stand with your left foot on one end of the band or secure the
band at floor level.
Hold your band in your right hand with your arm straight by
your side your band taunt but not stretched. You may have
to roll it around your hand a little to get the right
tension.
Hold the band with your palm facing forward and your thumb
pointed outward. Using the upper arm (rotator cuff
muscles), rotate your fist gently to about 45 degrees -
not 90. Your hand will not touch your leg. (This position
changes as you improve joint flexibility and position.
Keep your torso stationary and your arm straight throughout the
movement.
Stretch your band up to shoulder height in a side lift. Make
the movement is created completely from the deltoids (your
shoulder capsule) and not by leaning or lifting your
shoulder toward your ear.
Make sure your wrist is straight and is perpendicular to the
middle of your shoulder joint. This is usually slightly
more toward your back than feels normal. Your thumb will
point directly toward the ceiling.
You can look over to your arm to check once you are in position
but keep your head straight when you arm moving through
each motion.
Resist as you bring the arm back down without rolling your
shoulders forward or allowing your arm to roll forward
(keep the heel of the hand coming into position), or leaning
forward.
Do 3-8 of these building toward 15 in perfect form each time -
be methodical in the execution. It's not about the number
of repetitions but the quality of each one.
Repeat on the other arm.

Now you know why I train one on one. I really believe, through experience, that the work has to be methodical and specific to each joint (and don't be surprised that your right and left sides will work and feel differently). I also will reiterate that the number of repetitions is less important than the quality of each repetition. If you are moving slowly to insure total isolation of the joint action it just means you were in the muscles longer and fatigue can set in sooner but you still stayed in the muscle and profited the benefit. It's not worth loosing an ounce of form to get to some magical number of reps.

You ultimately want to feeeeellllll each movement and all the other body tensions that come into play to create that perfect repetition. Just as in the golf swing: Lessons teach the form and the positioning and the technique but ultimately a really good golf swing comes down to finally feeling when you are "on" and then . . . you hit the sweet spot.

That's what I have to say today. At this point I have forgotten your other questions. I'll probably readdress those in a little while. It would take less time to teach you this than for you to read it all. Sorry, it's the nature of the beast. Vickie

Just to clarify, I need to work through the soreness correct? I'm trying to understand, it's just hard to get in my head. When I'm sore, my brain tells me to stop, but it sounds like I need to keep going. How do I know when too much is too much, you know what I mean?

Thanks again.