Shoulder Injuries in Bodybuilding

Shoulders are often injured while performing exercises for building muscle mass. With the aim to fully develop the deltoid muscle, bodybuilders periodically varied movements that increase the risk of injury.
Deep in the shoulder joints, there are small muscles that work exclusively on biomechanics. They do not resist heavy standing or decline bench presses.

They have minimal growth potential. Bundles of these muscles can easily get hurt. In addition, during exercise, these muscles rub against bone blade appendage. Hence, this causes extreme pain and inflammation. Many experienced bodybuilders live for years on analgesics. However, sports medicine knows how to prevent injuries rotators.

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Our shoulder joints have a high degree of freedom in all three planes. If we compare with the hip, both perform the same function of the joint - control the movement of the limbs. As you've just seen, each in their own way. Limited mobility of the hip joint is not accidental. It is a condition of its strength. The mobility of the shoulder joints obtained at the cost of their complex costing. But all that is complex can be easily broken.

As we said shoulder injury is the most common in bodybuilding. Moreover, most of the injuries affect a group of four small muscles, hidden deep in the shoulder joint. They are called the rotator-cuff of shoulder muscles.

These muscles are not able to develop a sufficient force for the beach bar. However, their role is important. Rotator- cuff muscles are an extra insurance. They have a strong foundation, as they should not break away from the blades, even under enormous loads. The upper tendons of muscles are reduced practically to a point. This hardly strengthens the link between them.

You have to know that any movement of the hands is accompanied by a reflex contraction of the muscle-rotators. They become shorter and more press in the humerus in response groove joint. Thus, rotation of the hands is less dangerous as the joint increase the strength.

There are many factors that may cause shoulder injuries. Most common of them being the following: the excess burden on the shoulders, genetic defects shoulder joints, old injuries and incorrect technique of exercise execution.

When there is a pain in the shoulder, the cause is difficult to understand even for an expert. Obviously, a doctor can help with special techniques to accurately diagnose the injury-rotators muscles, but to unravel its nature is possible only during a long and expensive test using the methods of functional diagnostics.

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According to sports professionals, shoulder pain is most common among athletes with experience. This happens because of decrease of free space under the acromion shoot. As a result, the muscles and their tendons begin to rub against each other, causing pain.

Another cause of pain is tendonitis. These are inflammation of the tendons, muscles rotators. Usually, they occur in microdamage places caused by too much tension of tendons or friction on the hard tissues of the joint.

Another disease associated with pain is called bursitis. This is an acute or chronic inflammation of the so-called bursa. Bursa is located under the muscle-tendon rotator, passing over the acromion ridge blade. It should prevent the ridge crest to cut tendon. Excessive pressure on the bursa leads to further damage and inflammation.

There are cases when pain is caused by a partial rupture of the muscle-rotators. All the causes of pain, except the last, seem insignificant. There are many people who think that this is an inflammation, nothing serious and do not pay attention to it, continuing exercising even they feel pain. They take analgesic and continue training. In this case, the inflammation worse, and the pain will increase.

Since the new load does not give the source of inflammation to heal, it becomes chronic. Pain disappear, then occurs again. The worst thing is that chronic inflammation is practically impossible to treat using drugs, although at the beginning you can help a simple aspirin or ibuprofen tablet.

It is very important to say that doctors categorically prohibit to exercise when you feel pain in your shoulder. The fact is that the inflammation weakens tendon tissue. So the next training on analgesics can turn into a tragedy: inflammation of the tendon may tear.

If you suddenly feel a pain in the shoulder, training should be immediately stopped. It is highly recommended do not do any exercises that concern the area of injury during two weeks. There are some quick measures that have to be taken in case of shoulder injuries.

First of them is about applying a cold pack on the area of injuries. Do this procedure in the first 2-3 days after you get injured for 20 minutes. Applying cold will successfully fight inflammation. Take medications. It is not only about taken a drug that relieves pain, but drugs that fight inflammation too.

These include drugs from the group of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory analgesics. In particular, ibuprofen and its analogs, and naproxen. Remember that any drug has side effects. So take ibuprofen or naproxen strictly following the instructions.

Take a pause from your training. The duration of the break depends on the severity of the injury. Sometimes the pain is significantly reduced after 3-4 days of rest. Complete rejection of movements that bother injured shoulder is one of the most effective methods of treatment. Why so? Because the edges of the wound have to be pressed tightly against so the wound starts healing. In case of doing stretching movements, the wound will not be able to heal and will continue to bleed.

The same situation is in case of traumatized muscle-rotators. Immediately after the injury molecular fragments of the destroyed tissue get into the bloodstream and signal the brain about the occurred injury. Brain immediately starts the healing process. In the area of injury rush dozens of enzymes, hormone compounds, blood cells and stem cells. As you see body struggle with the disease by itself.
But if after a week the pain is still acute, then amateur treatment have to be interrupted and you have to do a visit to your physician.

Perform exercise for rotator muscles. Daily stretching and special exercises will keep you away from getting your shoulders injured again. Stretching will make tendons-rotation elastic and less susceptible to rupture. Performing special exercises will help to increase the force of rotators. Their resistance to the load increase, thus the risk of traumatic sprains is greatly reduced.

Keep in mind that once the pain from your shoulder disappears you do not have to come back to the old working weights. Why? because the re-injury will not make you feel pain suddenly. Pain comes late in the evening or the next day. So first try the lightweight and see what happens. If the pain does not appear tomorrow, add some more weight to your training.

It’s true that it will take time to get some progress, but it is guaranteed to lead you to a full recovery. It makes no sense hurry up to your old weights, because injury which is not healed with time pass into a chronic, and this is something you will never want to happen to you.  In order to prevent strengthen the muscle-rotators.

In order to avoid getting your shoulder injured were developed some great exercises designed to strengthen the muscles and joints. Include these exercises in your training twice a week and you will prepare an excellent base for building muscle definition with no danger of getting injured your shoulders.

One of these set of exercise is called "The Wall". Perform it this way: press your heels, buttocks, shoulders and head to the wall. The hands should be raised up, bent at the elbows and also pressed the wall.

Exercise consist in the act that staying pressed tagainstthe wall, you should raise up your hands as much as possible. As soon as you reached the maximum point, the elbows should be gradually lowered as low as possible. It will be enough to perform three reps about 15 seconds each of them.

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Shoulder Shrugs Exercise

The starting position is the same as in case of push-ups, your head should be in the line with the spine. Keeping the original position of the body you have to try to reduce the blade as much as possible, and then relax the shoulders, allowing them to sag. Three repetition about 15 seconds is enough for this type of exercise.

Another exercise is called Arnold press alternatives. For this exercise, you will need to use dumbbells. Standing position, legs apart at shoulder width, toes apart, dumbbells held in front of chest, palms facing back.

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Performed bench with one hand while turning the brush. At the maximum point of benching, palm should be facing forward. Then, carrying traffic in the opposite order, dumbbell should return to its original position. The same must be run with the other hand. In this case, perform three reps for 12 seconds.

Staggered-Stance Lateral Raise Exercise

In the position of standing erect, hold the dumbbells at hip level. Do a step forward and from this position lift dumbbells with your hands. The maximum lifting point is at shoulder level, then let your hands back to the starting position. Special attention must be given to the preservation of balance. Perform three reps about 12 seconds.

Squat with Dumbbells Exercise

Follow this position: feet apart at shoulder-width, toes should be diluted, hands straight with dumbbells at hip level. Exercise is carried out in several stages, first to raise the dumbbells up to shoulder level, then slowly squat is performed, the line thighs should be parallel to the floor line.

Then you need to straighten up, with all the bells also held at shoulder level. Then with an effort to squeeze the dumbbells straight arms, lower their shoulders and then return to the starting position (at the hips). Three reps for 12 seconds is enough for this type of exercise.

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As you see there are ways to prevent the injury of shoulders. One of them is to build stronger rotator cuff muscles and to avoid overworking shoulder with big weights. A good warming up before getting into training is another great advice that will keep you away from any injuries. And do not forget about the right technique of execution of each exercise. Since a proper execution minimizes the risks of injuries.