Dat’ Shoulder Do’

Ah, everyone loves some shoulder pain.

Well, unfortunately, I’m in that boat. But, the nice thing is I kind of expected it from the start.

If you look at any major workout plan from pretty much the beginning of time you will see that hard shoulder days are almost never before squat days.

Why?

Because the shoulder capsule is a very tight space, that has a lot of tissue running through it.

This tightness is why it’s so important to shrug your shoulders up when you’re pressing overhead. This shrug moves your scapula out of the way to allow for more room in the shoulder.

The space gets even tighter when you work out your shoulders hard, because when your body heals it floods the area with fluid to help heal the torn muscle fibers.

This swelling causes the already tight space to get even tighter.

When the space gets too tight, or if you don’t shrug your shoulders up, the tissue actually rubs between the humerus, scapula, and clavicle. Hence pain.

The swelling is why you don’t typically see squat days after heavy shoulder days, because when you lock the bar in place for your squat, you once again are squeezing this tight space with all of this fluid further aggravating the area.

Sometimes, it’s worth the risk.

I was opting for a very high-intensity workout cycle, with lots of pressing and squatting, and could not avoid them being back to back.

For me, putting 10lbs on the press was worth it.

Short term

But, now that the training cycle is over, it’s time to let the area heal and to space those days back out.

So, if you are experiencing shoulder pain, while it might be because of bad form or a tweak at some point, it also might not be.

Take a hard look at your workout plan, and see if the design of it is the cause. If it is, you have to make the call if it’s worth it or not.

All the best, and here’s to pain-free shoulders.

Coach T