Nerve pain in shoulder?

[Squeakyguy]

I looked through some of the old posts that people have had in Rip's Q&A about shoulder pain radiating down through the arm, elbow and forearm, and I didn't find all the information I was hoping to discover. Some more googling, and all I got was some vague information and "rest from the offending activity for 3-6 weeks." I was hoping to get a second opinion from all your collective experience (I can't imagine shoulder pain is a terribly uncommon occurence).

So for my details:
Age: 23, 6'4" 220lbs.
Started lifting (stronglifts 5x5) in November 2012, Starting Strength by early January, started rugby in mid February (have had a shaky lifting schedule since then, only 1-2x per week, often nursing injuries and soreness from the previous practices)
Current Lifts:
Squat 265x5
Bench 205x5 (haven't been able to bench much lately because of my pain, so probably lost strength)
Press 135x5 (pain has been keeping the gains in check)
Deadlift 305x5
Power Clean 140x3 I've only just started cleans

So as the squat weight goes up during warmup sets, I'll get a minor tingling in only my left (non-dominant) shoulder and upper arm. By the end of my first workset, my shoulder, arm, elbow, and forearm are on fire with an electric pain radiating down from my shoulder. If I sweat through the squats, I'll be unable to bench or press. I'll clutch my arm in a bit of pain for fifteen minutes, and usually by then it will have cooled off enough to deadlift.

The pain usually goes away completely, but today, a spot on my arm right above my elbow is still really sore and tender. The pain weakens my arm strength significantly (chin ups, also tested curling). To my knowledge, the pain isn't linked to any specific trauma from rugby, I started noticing it about a month ago.

When I started lifting, I noticed that my right shoulder could comfortably assume the proper low bar position, but my left shoulder (the painful one) was much less flexible, requiring a few warm up sets and stretching to reach the proper position. Often, my shoulder will dislocate when trying to assume the position. It hurts a little bit when the shoulder dislocates, but by the time I'm fully loose, it usually doesn't happen. I have a history of pitching in baseball (right-handed) while growing up, so I think the flexibility discrepancy might trace back to that.

Here's a video of some recent squats to give you an idea about bar position, etc. I guess it's hard to tell how my bar is on my back from this view. (I also know that these weren't quite hitting depth, and I've made efforts to correct that since this video was taken)


So, does this sound like some sort of nerve impigement? Are there any stretches that would improve my tight shoulder's sensitivity to this stress? Do I need to avoid low-bar squatting to let the nerve heal? Or NSAIDS and keep at it?

It's really tough to push the weights up when my arm winds up on fire. Thanks for any input you guys might have. I understand you can't provide medical advice. I think what you guys are doing is a wonderful service. I appreciate your time, and have a good day.

[Steve Hill]

Radiating nerve pain like this is usually the result of a neck / spinal issue, not soemthing in the shoulder. We'll wait for Sully's advice.

[Nic Lane]

I had the same thing, though after a 4 or 5 re-aggravations between July 2011 and March 2012, I've kept it healthy for over a year. Of course you should probably check in with a doc to eliminate neck/spinal involvement. After my neuro ruled that out with conduction studies he diagnosed me with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, said it would probaly keep bothering me, and told me not to press overhead.

Armed with a diagnosis, if not useful advice, I did some googling and found stuff that seems to have helped. I do scalene and pec minor stretches, something called '1st rib mobilization' which is basically taking a piece of PVC with a tennis ball on the end, lying down and jamming the ball into your shoulder with the end of the PVC in a corner and moving your arm from your side to overhead. I found a good massage therapist who helps loosen the shoulder up every couple of months, but I don't really need that, it's just a nice to have.

Be super strict on form. If I get sloppy with a heavy bench set my arm will lightly tingle for a couple days. But the blinding pain (a kidney stone was a walk in the park comparatively) and partial triceps paralysis have been gone, as I said, for over a year. I'm back to bench and press PRs.

Good luck.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

Differential diagnosis includes thoracic outlet obstruction, cervical rib, neural foraminal stenosis and brachial plexopathy, among others. Go to sports med or ortho clinic for exam, imaging, and possibly NCS. Let us know what they find.

[Squeakyguy]

Thanks for the input, folks. Spelling out the differential diagnosis encouraged me to, ya know, schedule an appt. with a medical professional. My dad told me to do so two days ago, but what do parents know, amirite? Advice over the internet is cheap and easy.

Will report back with results.