There are precautions that we can take, but to say that you won’t ever get injured or at least a little bit dinged up as a result of working out would be misleading and just downright false. The last 3 – 4 months I have been dealing with an excruciating right shoulder injury centered around my subscapularis and supraspinatus. It has gotten so bad that I can’t even lift my right arm above my head.

For this post,I want to discuss the following:

1. A little bit about injuries
2. Why I think they happen

1. A little bit about injuries

I recently went to get an ultra-sound on my shoulder. The results were quite formal and rather difficult to understand, here are the results:

Ultra-sound right shoulder.  It is observed in the sheath liquid biceps tendon , tenosynovitis bicipital.Tendon to assess clinically subscapularis and infraspinatus unchanged significativas.Se observed slight thickening and decreased echogenicity of the supraspinatus tendon , with no clear solution of continuity , suggestive of tendinopathy . Significant attention supraspinatus tendon entrapment with dynamic maneuver. bursitis.Probables degenerative changes in acromioclavicular articulation with hypertrophy capsula.Se irregularity observed in the cortex of the humeral Cabera of unspecific characteristics are identified, but could not rule out the case of small fissure. A correlate clinically . No other alterations.

As you can see, there are quite a lot of medical terms and if it weren’t for the wonders of Google I would probably be lost. Now granted I had it translated by Google because it was originally in Spanish.

But after taking this to my spanish speaking chiropractor and my Rolfing specialist, they both concluded the same thing:

An inflammation of the biceps tendon and supraspinatus. Suggested I get rest and a physical therapy.

Basically I injured my supraspinatus tendon and as a result negatively effected my subscapularis muscle. The supraspinatus tendon essentially was inflammed as a result of doing too many repititions. Supraspinatus Inflammation. The supraspinatus muscle runs along the top of the shoulder-blade and inserts via the tendon at the top of the arm or humerus bone. It is one of the rotator cuff muscles.

As the supraspinatus inflamed it caused imbalanced movement in my right shoulder, or more so, I caused in imbalance and my subscapularis muscle became inflamed as well. The subscapularis is a large triangular muscle which fills the subscapular fossa and inserts into the lesser tubercle of the humerus and the front of the capsule of the shoulder-joint.

Let’s stop for a second, to examine the most common types of injuries which are sprains, strains, and soft-tissue injuries.

• Muscle sprain,  is a stretching or tearing of ligaments — the tough bands of fibrous tissue that connect two bones together in your joints. The most common location for a sprain is in your ankle.
• Muscle strain, muscle pull, or even a muscle tear refers to damage to a muscle or its attaching tendons. You can put undue pressure on muscles during the course of normal daily activities, with sudden heavy lifting, during sports, or while performing work tasks.
• Soft tissue injury (STI) is the damage of muscles, ligaments and tendons throughout the body. Common soft tissue injuries usually occur from a sprain, strain, a one off blow resulting in a contusion or overuse of a particular part of the body.

Tendon inflammation, or in my case, tendon sheath inflammation is typically the result of injury to the tendon or surrounding muscle or bone. It’s not limited to athletes and appears in patients who perform a variety of repetitive-motion activities, such as assembly line work, weeding, and typing. People working in certain jobs appear to have greater risk of it than others, including:

carpenters
dentists
musicians
office workers

The top seven (7) common sports injuries according to WebMD are:

1. Ankle sprain
2. Groin pull
3. Hamstring strain
4. Shin splints
5. Knee injury: ACL tear
6. Knee injury: Patellofemoral syndrome — injury resulting from the repetitive movement of your kneecap against your thigh bone
7. Tennis elbow (epicondylitis)

2. Why I think they happen

Reason #1 – Listen to your body.

So how did all of this happen?

How is it possible, even after I wrote that great little article all about the beauties of the shoulder?

Well I have my suspicions, and for starters the vast majority of us have been brought up in the formal school system and I believe this a big part of why we just done listen to our own bodies. According to the Center for Public Education, “Most students require between 175 and 180 days of school and/or between 900 and 1,000 hours of instructional time per year, depending on the grade level.”

Now say we are in school from age 6-18.

That’s 12 years times 1,000 hours. That is 12,000 hours of other people telling us when to go to the bathroom, when to eat, when to play, when to get up, when to sit down. 12,000 hours.

Now add that to how many times do you think your mom and dad told you, you can’t or don’t do that, or just plain no?

I would venture to say that that number is in the ten’s of thousands.

And we wonder why we are so externally motivated and not in tune with hearing or trusting our own judgement let alone what are body is telling us.

When I was working out, doing pull ups on the gymnastic rings, I felt for nearly 6-7 weeks a sharp pain in the right shoulder, and I ignored it. I told my body to, “Shut up! I am in charge.”

And I continued on.

Dumb, Dumb. Dumb.

Now I am paying for my own stupidity.

Please do not make the same mistake as I did. Listen to your body.

Reason #2 – Quality over quantity (Mastery)

Another reason I believe I injured myself, was that I was focused on quantity and not quality. I was so freaking obsessed with more more more, that I lost sight of the big picture, and I was not focused on mastery. Check out my fitness log:

Each line was a set.

I was doing 25-30 sets. Averaging 500-600 reps.

Just way too much.

The reason my shoulder got inflamed was pretty clear. And worse of all I continued despite the pain.

Reason #3 – Take your time

The last and final reason, was that I was so intent on my time. I was so intent on speed and watching the clock that I was not focused on taking my time. I would have been better off just practicing negative movements.

I was so fixed on the YouTube athletes that I saw doing these crazy feats that I never stopped to think, that they are different from me and to just be yourself and workout at your own rhythm.

It can be enticing to try to do what we see on YouTube. Trust me, don’t do it. Please don’t do it. You will pay in the end.

In conclusion, listen to your body, focus on quality and take your time. I wish I had actually followed my own advice.

Please please listen to your body. This is not a race. We are all in it for the long haul. Calisthenics is for life.

Oh yeah, and a couple of things that have made a world of difference.

If you are feeling any pain, STOP STOP STOP.

Rest and word around the injury.

If you are thick headed like me and continue on to the point that you can’t lift your arm, then I would advise to see a specialist like a chiroprator and get an x-ray and or ultra sound.

If you are having sleepless nights there are non-toxic medications you can take like:

Arnica as a gel or cream to rub on the effected area

Harpagophytum or Devil’s claw as an alternative to medication, I took the drops as it gets in your system quicker.

In addition, if you like to sleep on your side, don’t do it. Learn to sleep on your back. But if you can’t resist the temptation to sleep on your side than you might want to check out this video:

And give yourself massages two-three times a day, massaging the effected areas.

And one final thing, these two exercises are life savers, here is an excellent video on the two awesome exercises. (Time: 7:49 minutes)

I knew that it was a bit sore but to what extent I wasn’t really sure.

The entire night I was tossing and turning with an excruciating pain in my left thumb joint. It was like someone took a knife and was constantly jabbing it. It was on fire.

I knew then that I had done something to it.

I quickly ran some self-diagnosis to test the flexibility and to better gauge the severity of the issue. I wanted to test my wrist by varying the movement to see whether I did any harm to the wrist and possible forearm or was it just isolated to the hand itself.

I did varied movements, by using angular motion, to extend, flex, pronate, supinate and rotate the wrist and forearm. There was no pain or limited motion, so I felt somewhat comfortable that the pain was possibly related to just the left hand.

In addition, I matched both my left hand and right hand palm to palm and spread and pronated inward and outward my thumb to see if there were any noticeable differences between either hand. As I did not see anything out of the norm. I ask for a second opinion and recruited my girlfriend to see if she saw anything different between my left and right hand. Again nothing seemed unusual.

With a relatively confident self-diagnosis, I began to take rice (R.I.C.E.) no not the brown or white type you eat, I used a good old treatment to help with what I believed was a mild injury often recommended for soft-tissue injuries.

R.I.C.E. is an acronym and nice way of remembering the four elements that make it up: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate.

Rest

When any type of trauma or injury happens, it is essential that you take time off from using the affected limb, until you have 80-90% of your functionality.One of the biggest mistakes, and I have been guilty of this one as well, is coming back too soon from an injury or worse ignoring your body’s message of pain and continuing to workout. This often leads to even worse injuries that oftentimes require someone with a scalpel cut one open or sewing one up. In my research I have seen that  the vast majority of serious injuries could have been prevented if the person just took some well needed time off. Recovery from muscle tears, soreness and injury is far different than tendon injuries that need at minimum 2-6 weeks to heal. Muscles and tendons both require time to heal from trauma.

What I personally did with my left hand, was to take a few days off to just monitor the injury. After 3 days i noticed that the pain was subsiding but was still noticeable. Wrists, shoulders and hands can be particularly prone to injury and taking proper care is essential especially when it comes to calisthenics. So I decided to take 2 weeks off and monitor it, as well, I tried to do as little as possible with my left hand as possible, to not aggravate it any more.

Ice

This second element, is a bit, controversial, because there are two schools of thoughts when it comes to icing injuries, do it or don’t do it. I have heard both arguments and quite honestly, I can only go with my own personal experience, which is when I ice an injury for 10-15 minutes, the swelling and pain subsides. Now of course this could be a placebo, but what the heck, if it works, why fix it?

Whether the inflammation is reduced or not, is again up for debate, but I subscribe to icing the injury at least 10-15 minutes every hour on the hour. You don’t want to do more than 15 minutes because you could actually work against you in delaying healing. It’s best to use some form of insulation like a towel to protect your skin from the ice cold pack. Another suggestion is to alternate between ice and no-ice for 15–20 minutes each, for a 24–48 hour period.

Compression

I want to preface that all four elements, Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevate are all design to help reduce inflammation and allow your body to naturally heal itself. This third element, compression, helps to reduce and sometimes limit the swelling, however it can also delay healing. But it’s been my experience that the compression from a ace bandage or elastic cloth bandage greatly helps to not only reduce the swelling but also the pain. You don’t want to have it too tight, just tight enough to apply pressure. If you feel throbbing than you may have it wrapped to tightly and will want to re-apply the bandage. Compression stockings or sleeves are a viable options. Anything that can act as a subtle applied force of pressure.

Elevation

This final element or component is simply meant to elevate the injured area higher than the level of your heart. The purpose is to again reduce inflammation, by raising the injured area above your heart. Essentially you are using gravity to help and aid your lymph system to reduce the swelling. You are in essence helping your body to relieve itself of the blood that can cause swelling. by increasing venous return of blood to the systemic circulation. In other words, when you raise your injured area higher than heart, you help to redirect the blood flow by good old fashion gravity, because the flow is being forced back to the source, which is your heart.

These four elements can make a huge difference in your ability to heal. I have personally used these four with positive results. Of course, this is just anecdotal evidence, as one person’s experience does not make for scientific proof.

However, with the exception of “compression” where you may need to buy an ACE bandage, and even then you can improvise with a bandana or torn piece of cloth, or a sock or something that is elastic enough to create a force of pressure, the other three elements are completely FREE.

My question to you, is if you are going to experience or are experiencing a soft tissue injury, why wouldn’t you give it a try?