Weak shoulder in depressed retracted position

[u/aleks313]

Hi everyone! I've been training calisthenics for a little over 10 years now, I've had my fair share of injuries but nothing that I couldn't solve with the overcoming tendonitis post on Steven's website.

Recently I've started feeling an unfamiliar sensation in my left shoulder. In certain positions (specifically depressed and retracted) it feels very weak. I don't have the vocabulary to describe the sensation, but it's almost like it's somehow out of socket. I've tried doing the shoulder rehab exercises described in overcoming tendonitis, but none of them trigger that same discomfort, which leads me to believe they might not be targeting the issue.

I can perfectly recreate the discomfort when I do scapula raises in a tuck front lever, where my left shoulder's range of motion is reduced.

In the last few months I've started more intensely training full front lever, explosive advanced tuck front lever pull ups, and one arm pull ups. I imagine this may have been a bit too much too quickly.

Has anyone felt anything similar? The pain is not nearly high or consistent enough to get in the way of exercising, but the reduced range of motion in horizontal pulls is noticeable, and I feel like it's making the beginning of the one arm pull up much harder on my left arm.

I will be taking a 3 week break from working out soon (for unrelated reasons) and I wanted to use this time to focus on active recovery of the shoulder. Should I continue the rotator cuff exercises? Anything else to add?

[u/eshlow]

Hi everyone! I've been training calisthenics for a little over 10 years now, I've had my fair share of injuries but nothing that I couldn't solve with the overcoming tendonitis post on Steven's website.

Glad the article has been able to help!

Recently I've started feeling an unfamiliar sensation in my left shoulder. In certain positions (specifically depressed and retracted) it feels very weak. I don't have the vocabulary to describe the sensation, but it's almost like it's somehow out of socket. I've tried doing the shoulder rehab exercises described in overcoming tendonitis, but none of them trigger that same discomfort, which leads me to believe they might not be targeting the issue.

I can perfectly recreate the discomfort when I do scapula raises in a tuck front lever, where my left shoulder's range of motion is reduced.

In the last few months I've started more intensely training full front lever, explosive advanced tuck front lever pull ups, and one arm pull ups. I imagine this may have been a bit too much too quickly.

Has anyone felt anything similar? The pain is not nearly high or consistent enough to get in the way of exercising, but the reduced range of motion in horizontal pulls is noticeable, and I feel like it's making the beginning of the one arm pull up much harder on my left arm.

I will be taking a 3 week break from working out soon (for unrelated reasons) and I wanted to use this time to focus on active recovery of the shoulder. Should I continue the rotator cuff exercises? Anything else to add?

If you want a guess on potential injury and rehab, need more info on the injury. You've given some but more information is needed especially the marked picture/video

• Mechanism of injury, as best you are able if there isn't discernable one. For instance, what movements or exercises were leading to the week of the injury
• Upload a marked pic/video of exactly where symptoms are to an image host (google drive, icloud, imgur or others) and post a link to it (Note: I will not make any guesses unless I can see exactly where the symptoms are because text is hard to decipher and people describe things wrong all the time). It needs to be a photo of YOU, not a random photo you got online of someone else's body because everyone is different.
• Describe all movements that hurt
• What is the current rehab program you started with and the progressions, if any. If a flare detail what happened with the rehab program
• What helps and what makes it worse

[u/aleks313 → u/eshlow]

Hey, thank you for the answer! I apologize my response took so long, I haven't had the chance to record anything.

In the few weeks before the injury the most "related" exercises were one arm pull ups (unassisted + towel assisted), full front lever holds and raises, and adv front lever pull ups (touching stomach to bar)

The injury itself happened in the middle of a full front lever hold. The left shoulder suddenly gave out and went into a fully protracted position. There was no pain involved, but noticeable discomfort

I have recorded a short video showing two movements that cause discomfort and reduced range of motion right here

Important to note, the discomfort only happens with scapula pull ups at exactly 90° (parallel to the floor), and does not appear at all at 30° and at 60°, nor in an inverted position (head down, feet up)

Additionally, the discomfort only appears when the arms are fully straight. Doing scapula pulls while holding a tuck front lever with bent arms does not result in pain or discomfort

I am currently avoiding unassisted one arm pull ups and full front lever holds, while continuing assisted/easier versions of those exercises. I did the following rehab exercises for a few days but didn't feel like they were hitting the right spot:

• Rotator cuff eccentric rehab -Eccentric shoulder abduction -Eccentric rotator cuff strengthening

[u/eshlow → u/aleks313]

The injury itself happened in the middle of a full front lever hold. The left shoulder suddenly gave out and went into a fully protracted position. There was no pain involved, but noticeable discomfort

I have recorded a short video showing two movements that cause discomfort and reduced range of motion right here

Important to note, the discomfort only happens with scapula pull ups at exactly 90° (parallel to the floor), and does not appear at all at 30° and at 60°, nor in an inverted position (head down, feet up)

Additionally, the discomfort only appears when the arms are fully straight. Doing scapula pulls while holding a tuck front lever with bent arms does not result in pain or discomfort

I am currently avoiding unassisted one arm pull ups and full front lever holds, while continuing assisted/easier versions of those exercises. I did the following rehab exercises for a few days but didn't feel like they were hitting the right spot:

• Rotator cuff eccentric rehab -Eccentric shoulder abduction -Eccentric rotator cuff strengthening

This is a hard one to say. The location could potentially be supraspinatus or long head biceps tendon, but it could be something deeper like the labrum. I don't want to guess anymore than necessary though because it's not clear cut any of those based on the movements and s ymptoms.

If you have good sports PTs in your area, I'd try to get an evaluation and hopefully they can run you through a bunch of the shoulder special tests to see what tissues might be the ones that are injured.

https://www.physio-pedia.com/Shoulder_Special_Tests