Any older women have frozen shoulder in the past and taken up lifting?

[sbhikes]

About a year and a half ago I had what is called "frozen shoulder". Apparently this happens often to older women. It's excruciating, nobody knows what causes it, and it disappears on its own. If you are lucky, it didn't go on too long and you maintained most of your mobility. That's what happened to me.

However, now that I've started lifting, I feel like my shoulder hurts again, especially if I try to perform some of the grip positions as shown in the pictures in the Starting Strength book. For example, if I attempt to position my grip for squat with arms as close together as the picture, the pain is quite excruciating. I can hold the bar with my arms further apart. Probably exacerbating things is that I have long forearms. (Long sleeved shirts tend to be 3/4 length on me.) The power clean rack position offers similar pain.

Are there any women (or anybody, really) who have had frozen shoulder and gone on to take up lifting? Have you been able to manage okay? Do you have to modify things at times or did you find a way to get your body into the proper position and get beyond the pain? Did you do any special stretching or anything to restore better mobility?

[Gunnhild Bruno]

I've never had to deal with frozen shoulder.

But just in case you haven't gotten to it yet in the book, the bar does not have to rest on the delts for presses. And for power cleans, if your forearms are long, you should widen your grip. When you rack, you kind of point your elbows inward in addition to up.

If the power clean is too hard on you even with the wider grip, then power snatch instead.

And make sure that, when bench pressing, you do not flare your elbows out too far. You may want to play with grip width to make benching doesn't aggravate your shoulders, or skip benching entirely if it causes you problems and just press.

Re: squats-- if you can stay tight in the upper back with a wider grip, a wider grip is OK. If it still causes a problem, you may end up having to high bar squat. Make sure your hand is high up on the bar, i.e., the bar is making contact with the heel of your hand way down by the wrist, not the center of your palm. Watch the bar position video in "resources" for more information.

There's a lot of stuff you'll have to play around with. Most people with shoulder problems report that things get better when they lift and get stronger, although benching and dipping remain problematic for some, so they skip it.

I strongly suggest you post frequent form checks or work with a coach to make sure your form is on point.

[sbhikes]

Thank you. Benching doesn't seem to bother me. The pain is in the back of the shoulder, under the shoulder blade or where it attaches or somewhere in there. Not the usual place. I really never realized what freakishly long arms I have until learning to lift.

[Gene61]

Hikes,
I "wrecked" my shoulders carrying a heavy surfboard several blocks back and forth to the beach for several months. It got worse and worse but I thought it was the surfing not the carrying. By the time I figured out the cause I had "frozen shoulders" and couldn't move my hands above or behind my shoulders without excutiating pain. After doing some research on the web I got the book "Triggerpoint Therepy." I found every spot that might be knotted up was in fact knotted up. I did the recommended massage 3 times per day and I got relief from the pain in about two weeks and complete "cure" in about 6. Be aware that Rip doesn't buy into Triggerpoint Therepy. Says it didn't work on him. However for me the knotted up spots went away and with it the pain.

At the same time I was carrying the big ol' surf board around, I was squating with poor arm/wrist form and I believe that was a contributing factor, so I also took the time to stretch my shoulders out with broom stick stretches for a couple of weeks before I restarted SS. Make sure you can keep your wrists straight and elbows back on the squat. (it's ok to put your hands wide on the bar to achieve this if you need to.)

[UberBabs]

I just saw this thread. I'm 55 now and had shoulder surgery in 2007. I have been lifting on and off for decades and started rock climbing when I was 45. The problem started when I was doing weighted dips; shoulder started aching; went in for MRI; small labrum tear -- during the three weeks between the MRI and scheduled surgery for the labrum tear, I developed frozen shoulder -- could not put my hand behind my back without excrutiating pain. So the surgeon decided to go in and fix the frozen shoulder (got rid of scar tissue and bone spurs too) and skip the labrum tear because the rehab would have been the opposite for the labrum -- keep immobile -- and the frozen should rehab started right after surgery with a PT cranking my arm around with me not knowing where it was due to the nerve block. I must say that the surgery shoulder feels much more stable than the other one. Since then, am back to rock climbing and even heavier lifting -- on Wendler -- e.g., 130 strict press and 190 bench. I have heard that the typical course of treatment is not surgery but a year or so of therapy -- which would have driven me crazy. I was lucky that I had the surgery already scheduled.

[SquatQueen]

I tore my rotator cuff and had surgery last November. I developed frozen shoulder post surgery. (I couldn't lift my arm past my waist). I was in physical therapy for a long time building back my range of motion inch by inch and my strength literally pound by pound in the first few months. Ugh, that sucked. I wouldn't wish frozen shoulder on anyone. Anyway, fast forward to now.
1. I don't do dips. They hurt.
2. I have moved from low bar to high bar squats as my shoulder ached chronically when I did low bar. The pain immediately went away with high bar. I now find that I can mix in a little low bar without pain, so I'm experimenting with that (I like low bar a lot more than high bar).
3. On presses, I find that my affected left shoulder is weaker than my right, which limits how quickly I can make gains.
4. I'm benching with no problems, but heed Simma's advice above.
5. I use a PVC pipe regularly for "shoulder dislocates" to work on rom for my shoulders. I actually now have better rom than I did pre-surgery.

I was very weak post surgery. I have progressed well over the past year given my age and injuries. I have far surpassed all of my lifts prior to surgery. I feel stronger than ever. It can be done!

[sbhikes]

I seem to be improving. The first improvement was made when I realized that my arms are very long. I stopped trying to hold my hands so close together as in the pictures in Starting Strength on squats. I actually place my hands quite wide. What an improvement in lack of pain in my shoulders that was! They always feel a bit stiff and like I'm asking them to do more than they want to, but little-by-little all of it is getting easier. I still only do dips leaning on my desk and they still hurt so I only do a minimal amount of them. Bench and press aren't too bad. It's really the squats that hurt my shoulders the most.