If you ever take a moment to stop and look around at your fellow weight-lifters at your health club, it is likely that you will make a troubling observation. An inordinate number of gym patrons are forced to pause frequently throughout their weight-lifting routines in order to rub their painful shoulders. Unfortunately, shoulder pain is nagging and prevalent in health clubs, despite the fact that most pain can be avoided with a few simple precautions. One of the most common shoulder conditions encountered is shoulder impingement, meaning that the round ball of the arm bone, called the head of the humerus, rubs or grinds up against the underside of your acromion bone. Although this condition has numerous causes, one of the most common is muscle imbalance.

Many people spend much more time and effort performing overhead presses, bench presses, dips, pull-ups, biceps curls, and skull crushers than much-needed retraction and external rotation movements of the shoulder. Although these exercises are effective in developing muscles, they cause the shoulder to become inferior and internally rotated. As a result, the external rotator muscles of the shoulders do not work well because they become overstretched and inhibited. The end result is a forward- rounded shoulder posture which causes pain when reaching the arm overhead. The pain gradually becomes worse and often causes weight lifters to discontinue exercising, leading to unhappy and inactive people who may loose flexibility and muscular strength.

How do you fix this problem?

If you have severe pain with swelling, you are unable to lift your arms to shoulder level, or a long history of pain, you need to consult your Chiropractic doctor, as advanced treatment of your injuries with therapies, surgical correction, or medications may be necessary.

However, if your shoulder pain is minor and nagging, the following guidelines could be helpful:

1. Avoid movements that require you to push your arms forward or overhead until the shoulder pain is corrected. Examples of these movements would be overhead presses, chest presses, pull-ups, pull downs, dips, pushups, and chest-flies. All of these movements use muscles that primarily internally rotate and pull the shoulder complex down and forward. This will further exacerbate muscle imbalances.

2. Perform the exercises and stretches that will emphasize shoulder retraction and external rotation. This will help to restore normal muscle balance of the shoulder girdle. Examples of these types of movements include wide grip seated rows, rear deltoid reverse flies, cable or band external shoulder rotations at the level of your waist and shoulder, and doorway stretches for the chest and anterior shoulder muscles.