shoulder pain - tendinitis

[Filiep]

Hi,
My name is Filiep, from Belgium (Europe)
I started SS 3 months ago, training mo, wed, fri.
I'm 35y, 176cm (5'10), 78,5kg (172lbs) coming from 68 (150lbs).
Current stats:
Squat: 3x5x115kg (253lbs)
BP: 3x5x72,5kg (160lbs)
OP: 3x5x50kg (110 lbs)
PC: 2x5x50kg (110lbs)
DL: 1x5x125kg (275lbs)
chins: 8,7,6 x BW

I' ve been suffering from recurrent pain (for over 2 years) in my right shoulder, and since this week also in my left shoulder, in the anterior part.
My fysio thinks it is either tendinitis of the biceps or the supraspinatus probably caused by too much stress on the tendons, due to the weightlifting. He suggested I take a couple of weeks off to let it heal and only doing my exercises for the back.
I plan to do the following for the next couple of weeks:

keep squatting 3x/week
no bench, no OP, no chins
only bend over rowing (3x/week or every other workout?)

Any opinions on this 'program'?
How long should it take to heal?
After 3 weeks, I probably have to start BP, OP with low weights, building up slowly.
What could have caused this tendinitis? I think it was BP, but I was making good progress on all my lifts, including BP and chins, so I don't really get it. I was reaching the end of my lineair progression, because BP was extremely difficult to get all 5 reps on all 3 sets.
Could the shoulderpain be aggravated by holding the bar when squatting?

A lot of questions, sorry about that. Thanks in advance for replying.

[hatmanii]

I have problems with inflammation in my supraspinatus.

This is what I did.

Drop benches for a while and start a 10 day regimen of 400mg ibuprofen every 4-6 hours. This should help clear up any acute issues and the pressing and chins will help anything chronic. Also make sure your arms and grip on the squat are good as the wrong grip can cause undue pressure on the shoulder.

Good luck!

[b17vic]

If you have a break from everything and your pain goes away how will you know what was causing the irritation/ pain? Trail and error let me know what I could and couldn't do, I have issues with my right shoulder. If it is tendonitis the smart thing to do is to have a break from whats causing it but have a break for how long? What happens if you have a break( a real break ) for two weeks and the pain remains do you take another two weeks? They key is to find out the exercise/ movement that causes the pain and not do it if that's an option. Only you can truly know your own body and it's reactions to the environment it's subject to.

[Greg Esres]

I experienced similar problems, although the pain was more on the posterior part of the deltoid during the squat, with referred pain on the outside of the bicep during BP and OP. My physician diagnosed it as tendonitis of the supraspinatus, with a small amount of bicep tendonitis. Based on my own research, I would have guessed tendonitis of the subscapularis, since internal rotation was very painful.

I'm not sure what caused the problem, but squats were the most painful; I had to give them up. BPs start to hurt in the 180 pound range. Laying off for a couple of weeks didn't help, neither did several rounds of NSAIDs, or six weeks of physiotherapy, focusing on strengthening of the rotator cuff and increasing upper body flexibility. I'm sure my age makes this a more difficult problem to solve...I'm 49.

I'm currently seeing some improvement (I think) by switching temporarily to a circuit-type training with high reps (25) and low weight.