I am feeling a pain in the shoulder. Yes yes, I know there are millions of threads like this floating around, but I have to ask.
How can I distinguish between a normal shoulder muscle sore and a shoulder injury? Are there circumstances in which the shoulder hurts but for completely normal reasons?
My shoulder is having a dull sore, not a sharp pain. I happened last night. I was swinging my arm around with no apparent reason, and doing backstroking motions when I suddenly felt a pain on the top portion of my deltoid. If I were to draw a circle around the pain, the circle would face out and forward. When my arms are over my head, there's NO pain, but when my arms reach about 45 to 30 degrees to my body, the pain starts. The pain is mainly when I'm moving my arm.
Right now, there's no pain anymore. I gave it a night and today, and currently there's no acute pain, but just a dull soreness much like an aching muscle. However, last night I sensed a bit of pain while moving in the 45 degree zone mentioned above, but when my arms were above my head or even above horizontal I couldn't feel a thing.
When the arm's hurting, after a bit of rest it felt like it had been charged up with lactic acid and had that kind of sore feeling (my entire arm). Then it disappeared. Right now I can't feel any pain while moving my arms, except that very mild soreness. Oh yea, I sense no obvious weakness in the arm or inability to sleep on it.
So...what's happening? Any ideas?
Thanks a lot.
Parents
Former Member
Originally posted by Draconis
The pain is not severe. It's just noticeable, yet I'm not sure that I should be swimming through the pain.
From what I have heard it is never a good idea to swim through injury induced pain. Unfortunately people use the word pain to refer to many different things, there is lactic acid induced muscle pain which is normal, there is muscle and tendon tear pain, and there is impingment/joint pain. The latter two are injury induced pain and will be made worse by swimming through them.
In my own experience with shoulder pain I have found that all movements of my arms behind the plane of my body, not just overhead movements, lead to problems. The most common problem movement for me is a high elbow recovery in crawl done without sufficient body roll. With enough roll my arms need never move behind my back. Unlike many people I am more likely to have shoulder problems during freestyle than butterfly.
I also find that shoulder pain can either occur during swimming, which in my case is usually a result of bad technique, such as insufficient roll, or can occur at times seemingly unrelated to swimming.
Shoulder problems are often caused by muscle inbalances that result in the shoulder joint not being held in its proper position in the shoulder socket. I have found that if I work one set of muscles particularly hard those muscles may be too tired and weak to properly hold the shoulder in place resulting in pain in the period after swimming. I also have found that when one set of muscles gets stiff and sore it may shorten up and pull the shoulder out of its correct position. Right now, most of my shoulder problems occur out of the pool when I make certain movements. Also in my experience clicking in the shoulder is a sign the joint is not being held steadily in place and is a sign that all is not well. I find that too much aggressive stretching can cause problems as can jumping into arm swinging without starting with slow movements to slowly expand the range of motion.
Long sets of *** stroke pull can cause me shoulder problems so I don't think you can safely assume that *** stroke is completely safe.
Other people have had different experiences so your milage may vary. Good luck.
Originally posted by Draconis
The pain is not severe. It's just noticeable, yet I'm not sure that I should be swimming through the pain.
From what I have heard it is never a good idea to swim through injury induced pain. Unfortunately people use the word pain to refer to many different things, there is lactic acid induced muscle pain which is normal, there is muscle and tendon tear pain, and there is impingment/joint pain. The latter two are injury induced pain and will be made worse by swimming through them.
In my own experience with shoulder pain I have found that all movements of my arms behind the plane of my body, not just overhead movements, lead to problems. The most common problem movement for me is a high elbow recovery in crawl done without sufficient body roll. With enough roll my arms need never move behind my back. Unlike many people I am more likely to have shoulder problems during freestyle than butterfly.
I also find that shoulder pain can either occur during swimming, which in my case is usually a result of bad technique, such as insufficient roll, or can occur at times seemingly unrelated to swimming.
Shoulder problems are often caused by muscle inbalances that result in the shoulder joint not being held in its proper position in the shoulder socket. I have found that if I work one set of muscles particularly hard those muscles may be too tired and weak to properly hold the shoulder in place resulting in pain in the period after swimming. I also have found that when one set of muscles gets stiff and sore it may shorten up and pull the shoulder out of its correct position. Right now, most of my shoulder problems occur out of the pool when I make certain movements. Also in my experience clicking in the shoulder is a sign the joint is not being held steadily in place and is a sign that all is not well. I find that too much aggressive stretching can cause problems as can jumping into arm swinging without starting with slow movements to slowly expand the range of motion.
Long sets of *** stroke pull can cause me shoulder problems so I don't think you can safely assume that *** stroke is completely safe.
Other people have had different experiences so your milage may vary. Good luck.
