any experiences with shoulder injury?

T

tom-selleck

Professional
never had pain with my shoulder before this year.

but took some advice on serve and i seem to have hurt my shoulder somewhat.

done some research and i think it's some kind of rotator cuff problem. i sense it's minor to moderate damage.

does anyone know if these types of things are prone to heal with rest and ibuprofen etc.???

obviously, not looking for medical opinion... but i had tennis elbow last year (on outside of elbow, i thought was golfer's elbow). took a long time to heal but it did heal. was wondering about people's experiences with shoulder pain.
 
I had arthroscopic surgery on my rotator cuff 5 months ago so i know the drill. You can definitely recover without surgery from even a minor tear. Get with a good Physical Therapist. After you rest it and ice it for a couple weeks they will give you 6-8 exercises with light weights and therabands to strengthen all the muscles around the rotator. Hopefully you can avoid surgery, most minor rotator injuries respond to a good program. If you really want to know for sure, an MRI can show the amount of damage you have.
 
Definitely get it checked on. Rest it, those injuries often get bigger and bigger if you play through it. You might end up having surgery, similar to RKS12.

While I won't tell you how to recover from it (not my expertise, I could give out faulty advice there, see a physical therapist instead), that change in your serve motion is definitely the cause.

Usually, damage to the rotator cuff results from a slight open stance in the serve, meeting the ball late (shoulder is in bad position, NOT position of power), and "arming" the serve instead of rotating the shoulder into the ball. Those might not be your problem, but they're the most specific ones.

You'll also very much want to see a private coach for one or two lessons to tell you what you're doing on your serve. I DON'T believe lessons are a necessity for everyone, but it's essential here in order to make sure you don't receive further injuries in the future and avoid risking your shoulder again.
 
yes, read all threads on "cuff", "shoulder"
nothing new here, just new to you:[

get a coach to have a look at you.
check your equipment.

check Shoulder Pain in my signature here:
 
i had shoulder problems not too long ago (from 10+ years of various sports including volleyball) and while my shoulder still makes crunchy sounds due to scar tissue, i've strengthened and stretched it enough that its never a problem now. the "rehab" took maybe a month and a half to where i could serve with my normal violence and not feel pain. it sounds like yours isn't too serious (yet), mine got to the point where there was a noticeable discrepency in the flexibility of my right and left shoulders. i was able to do everything except serve without pain, though.
 
About 3 yrs ago after a 1 year hiatus from competitive tennis, I had a sharp pain in my left shoulder that seriously hampered my service (one of the best part of my tennis game). It got so painful that I could not even throw a tennis ball over a 15 ft tall fence 30 ft away. I finally decided back then to do somthing about it so I revised my shoulder weight training routine to focus solely on stability rather than max weights lifted. Performing these 4 exercises in a single shoulder workout routine twice a week: Front Raises, Side Lateral Raises, Bent Over Raises, and Military Dumbell Presses with 20-25lbs dumbells 3 sets 12 reps, while holding the dumbells at their respective peak positions for about 2 seconds. As of 2004 to this day, no more shoulder pain.
 
Shoulder Pain

I have been experiencing some shoulder pain for 6 weeks now. I played through it for the first couple of weeks as I was in the stretch run of an outdoor singles league. I play about twice a week using a Head LM Instinct strung with Wilson Enduro Pro 17g at 53 lbs.

I went to see a doctor and he diagnosed my shoulder as having some moderate rotator cuff tendon inflamation and fraying. He prescribed anti-inflamatory pills and said to rest for a few weeks and slowly build up some strentgh in my shoulder and upper body. He is not familiar with tennis so he could not tell me if using the poly strings is what has instigated this injury. I have been using poly strings for about a year now with the Instinct. I have never had shoulder issues before and I have been playing for about 15 years consistently. I play at the 4.0 level. I was using Wilson Sensation or Wilson Stamina before this at 58 lbs in a Wilson Surge 5.1 racquet.

Has anyone else had similar experinces after using polys?
 
I just came off arthro rotator cuff surgery. Most small tears can heal without surgery but some can not. Also if you have bone spurs, these inhibit healing. All the doc's advice you got look solid but you need to be on a specific program with a good PT so your doing the right exercises to rehab. Once you go to a good PT for a few days and learn all the right exercises, you can do them at home if you want to avoid the cost of ongoing PT.
 
TnTBigman said:
I finally decided back then to do somthing about it so I revised my shoulder weight training routine to focus solely on stability rather than max weights lifted.
Click to expand...

this is a very reasonable approach.
 
Marius_Hancu said:
yes, read all threads on "cuff", "shoulder"
nothing new here, just new to you:[

get a coach to have a look at you.
check your equipment.

check Shoulder Pain in my signature here:
Click to expand...

marius, i appreciate all your help... but do actually have an opinion or actual experience with any issues?? i think you do but you're not sharing it with the poster base. instead you just point us to threads in the past.

i know how to work the search function... if we applied your standards to not starting new threads, the traffic in here would decrease 90%.

i do appreciate your help!!
 
thanks guys for all the help,

i know exactly how it was caused. it was short-term actions that caused it. tried to accentuate the pronation too much i.e. roddick and other guys end up with arm having rotated hugely, but it's natural. i tried to force it - not good.... never had any even shoulder soreness before that day.

i think i have some idea on how to strengthen it.

just need to know that a minor tear will heal on its own. and how much rest it needs.

i think i will go to sports medicine, either thru my doctor or directly.
 
I had what my Dr. called a shoulder "impingement" (sp?). He gave me some medicine (anti-inflamitories, I think) which did NOT help. Then he sent me to a Physical Therapist which helped VERY much. I went to 6 sessions with her, did the stretching and strengthening exercises she gave me, and within about 3 weeks my shoulder feels completely fine. That was almost 2 years ago now. Since then I've felt a bit of soreness a couple of times, but I just did the things she taught me for a couple of days and it cleared right up. I feel like that Physical Therapist gave me a whole new chapter of tennis.
 
Thanks for the positive post Geezer Guy! That makes me feel a little more encouraged. Let's hope that all us "shoulder tweakers" make satisfactory recoveries.
 
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