ExRx.net

Doc, I was able to trigger the numbness for the next 24 hours using my home-made back massager, but after that it did not happen any more.

Anyway, here's the update after the 2nd trip to the chiro.

What we Know
Previously seen on "ken's shoulder thread", we learned from the trainer that my bench technique was terrible. When I told the chiro that he combined it with my story about the horrible failed max attempt and figured we had a gradually worsening condition that probably become suddenly worse around Thanksgiving.

Active Recovery Technique
So he was pressing deep into the back of my shoulder and had me stretching out my arm, and after a few tries I mentioned the front shoulder discomfort had vanished, he declared that my:

Infraspinatus and Teres Minor
Were likely weak and definitely knotted up, and that the classic referral point for pain for these is the front shoulder.

External Rotations
He said to do external rotations with very light weight, like 3#, because any more weight than that and I would end up recruiting other muscles, failing to activate the TM and InfraSpinatus, making the problem worse instead of better. He also said to do them as slowly as I could stand, like 7-8 seconds for eccentric and 3-4 seconds for concentric.

Pec Minor
He also did some active recovery on the pec minor, but I did not notice any relief. he was able to show me how some of the soreness was from that as well.

Follow-ups
He said basically to come back twice/week for 2 weeks for the direct attack, what they call Active Recovery Technique (I call it chiro-gyro). This falls into the try-the-simplest-thing-first approach. If it goes away or gets much better than great.

Also I am to do those external rotations as described.

Also I'm supposed to get an MRI to rule out tears, so we aren't wasting our time.

Training
My next training session is Saturday, I'll feed this info to the trainer and see if he can provide other exercises to include/exclude.

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The Angels have the phone box.

Are you doing some kind of chest stretching? If you suspect an issue with the subscap then you might try specifically targeting it. Here's one http://www.exrx.net/Stretches/Subscapul ... stick.html

UPDATE: Hope is restored.

Also, commo, yes, I'm doing the pec stretches.

Wednesday was the doctor's appt, where he confirmed infraspinatus and teres minor as most likely injured. The big lesson was when he set me straight on weights, LOW WEIGHT, HIGH VOLUME, which led to:

Thursday, after squats did dozens of face pulls with very light weight, very light bands for reverse flyes, external rotations with 3.5#, and horrible pain with the lacrosse ball, spent like 45 minutes circuiting through these, leading to:

Friday: Holy Cow! Hardly cured but for the first time ever my shoulder felt positively different, like life was coming back into it, so I did the whole rigaramole again, leading to:

Saturday (today): Holy cow again! Still hardly cured but it now feels completely different. Discomfort only at extremes of range. Kind of strange, still weak but feels like strength is flowing back in. The clicks are still there through many motions but no longer painful. The trigger point is only painful when my arm is fully stretched up and fully internally rotated.

_________________
The Angels have the phone box.

Have you tried giving Cressey's Neanderthal No More program a whirl? It's really about high volume pulling and mobilizing/stabilizing the scapula to promote healthy shoulder function.

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don't you know there ain't no devil
that's just god when he's drunk

Kenny, don't know if you're still following this thread, but I have a question specifically on overhead cable pressing, which is, in short, what's the different between this and barbell press? Why this and not barbell pressing? Why can this help when barbell pressing may make it worse?

BTW, I've been doing the rehab workout for weeks now, getting good results, and am carefully reviewing this thread again, there is a lot of very good information here, which I'm going to try to boil down and summarize, stay tuned...