starting strength gym
Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: Lowbar shoulder issue/injury

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2021
    Location
    Sweden
    Posts
    3

    Default Lowbar shoulder issue/injury

    • starting strength seminar april 2024
    • starting strength seminar jume 2024
    • starting strength seminar august 2024
    Hello! This is my first post on this forum because I have exhausted all other options when trying to find a solution to my problem

    IMG_20210402_162111_01.jpg

    As you clearly can see my left wrist is bent and my left elbow is considerably lower than my right elbow(which I am not forcing up) which gives me unevenness and enormous amounts of pain. Pain bad enough that I can not for the life of me keep a straight wrist.

    Background: I ran the program for the first couple months with a much wider grip in addition to (mistakenly)resting the bar above the scapula in a area normal for high bar squatting. I corrected this with help from a gym friend when I noticed is was performing spine curls coming out from the bottom and thus did a reset from 225 with faulty form to 180 lbs with a squat resembling correct form.
    As soon as I hit 225, BAM, something I can only assume is golfers(tennis?) elbow in both elbows with pain radiating down both triceps thus making squatting extremely painful(4u). I search high and low for any information regarding what I might be doing wrong and come across multiple videos saying to jam shoulders up, which works for a while as I recover my numbers from getting hurt and time off from the gym the first time around, keeping elbows down purposefully just made my GE flare up badly to the point of me not being able to even raise my arms above my shoulders.
    This works out until my main gym closes(c19) and I find myself in a commercial gym doing 230 with a bar without center knurling and on my second set I catastrophically dump the bar over my head which was caused by it sliding up my back on the way up. I am fine after this ordeal but immediately my GE is back with a vengeance, after doing 15 chin-up singles per the pin-firing protocol I abort my third set and the rest of that day and stagger back home.
    My return to the gym after getting hurt twice I was desperate to find a solution to my problem and I found out that keeping a closer grip and straight wrists is a must.
    A couple days before the video about my problem was released (Andrew Lewis), but I cant physically keep straight wrists either with the solo method or my gym-partner bending my hands without feeling like my left shoulder is getting torn off.

    Holding my arm straight out to my side with my palm facing forwards and internally rotating my whole arm was difficult and painful for me directly following getting hurt but is not an issue after a couple of weeks.
    The pain was interfering with all other lifts except deadlift so I have been forced to high bar for the time being

    I have searched high and low, every single thread on this forum that even mentions the word "shoulder" and "pain" in it but have not found a solution to my problems. I will provide any additional info I haven't thought of if needed, since this is kind of my last resort.

    I haven't been involved in any sports/training and lived a largely sedentary lifestyle in front of my computer before starting strength half a year ago now if it might be relevant.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2020
    Posts
    33

    Default

    My right scapula doesn’t retract properly-this makes for an uneven bench position, I’d also imagine this affects my deadlift and the squat bar position as well. Low bar squatting can cause me terrible shoulder and elbow pain.
    I had MRI and ultrasound and had a few sessions with a £70 an hour sports therapist who has worked with Olympians. Everybody scratched their head, it’s like my right scapula is “glued” into a forward position. My right delt looks underdeveloped as a result-can’t tell if it actually is or if it’s just “out of position”. In a normal standing position my right shoulder seems to sit higher up as well.
    I was at one point diagnosed with cubital tunnel syndrome but I think that’s an offshoot of the problem. I also have a severe crunching sound in my right bicep. Anyway, planned surgery got binned due to COVID.
    Shoulder dislocations do not work at all for me. A ton of doorway stretches and the low bar ‘stretch’ help a bit so you could try those? After a load of stretching I can get to something resembling a LBBS but struggle to keep wrists neutral and this immediately causes problems when the weight gets heavier. I get so jealous watching the vids of people who can just ‘fold themselves’ and their scapula into the low bar position.
    Sorry to hijack but you may want to focus on a ton of shoulder mobility work.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2018
    Posts
    133

    Default

    Height and weight?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2021
    Location
    Sweden
    Posts
    3

    Default

    H 6'1
    BW 210
    age 22

    Have the same issues with my right scapula/shoulder feeling different from my left one, like they have different wills, and I think it is from my long time spent at my computer. This is noticeable on bench set-up and when I do dips(which I don't anymore).
    No amount of stretching seems to help and I'm doubtful to it being a mobility issue since I had no issues getting into position before. An oly coach friend of mine told me to do kettlebell work but I'm doubtful as to the effect of this.
    I had no issues keeping my elbows up and even but now it just hurts no matter what way I twist or position them on the bar.

    Might be worth mentioning that I'm laughably bad at chin-ups (not even 1 @ bw) since not really being barely able to do them before SS and then packing on 50 lbs. made it impossible to do even one but I am working on it now according to the "training the chin-up" article.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2021
    Location
    Sweden
    Posts
    3

    Default

    Tried once more to low-bar squat last week, only this time I tried holding the bar much lower on the palm to really make sure I have straight wrists, focus on keeping elbows down.
    Warmup sets were fine, as I hit 225 I can complete only one set because the second one was just too damn painful to even un-rack, pain flaring on outer sides of my biceps from shoulder to elbow. Trying for 112,5 OHP I couldn't even grind out one rep even though previous session went well, could barely do 90. Cleans I had to deload to 90 as well since racking the bar on my shoulders was to difficult and painful, especially left side.
    One day goes by with noticeable pain in both shoulders and arms, the following night I go to sleep and wake up with not being able to raise my right arm due to shoulder pain on the front part of the shoulder(I slept on that side).
    I keep moving it around during the day and it gets better before my next session the day after, where my shoulders and arms keep bothering me even on my high-bar squat, bench bombs from 162 and I can barely complete 3x5 90 lbs.
    Deadlifts are fine so I keep progressing on those.
    My squat and clean is still affected by this one session as are all my press movements.
    I can try and get some video next time I hit the gym but I'm worried trying to demonstrate my low-bar again will make me have to recover for 2-3 weeks again.
    Should I see a "physio" or book a doctors appointment, maybe get a flight ticket to England to se a SSC?

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •