Possible AC Joint Pain

I’ve been dealing with some pain and dysfunction in my right shoulder over the past week or two. For some (probably) relevant background, I injured my AC joint in the same shoulder while I was in college about 8 years ago (I think it was diagnosed as a grade 2 or 3 sprain based on physical tests, but no imaging was done). I rehabbed it under the guidance of one of the the school’s PT interns, and have had mostly normal function since then outside of some minor limitations such as an inability to comfortably front rack a loaded barbell and some trouble with exercises like weighted dips.

The pain I’m currently experiencing is in roughly the same location, however it thankfully hasn’t really affected my training much at all. I’m only having trouble with biceps curls, incline presses, and I have had to modify my low bar squat positioning a bit (I have to pin my elbows down a little less than I normally do). Other than that, I can squat, bench, and deadlift just fine. The pain has affected some general “life” movements, though, such as lifting various objects up to and beyond chest level. What would it be a reasonable strategy to tackle rehabbing this? I don’t really have much in terms of training movements that need modification, so should I incorporate some targeted rehab work? I don’t know the current recommendations, but 8 years ago I recall being prescribed movements like internal and external rotations with my arm at my side, external rotations with arm abducted 90 deg (among some others) with a resistance band, as well as stuff like goal post stretches, back when I initially sustained the injury.

I understand there’s usually not really a one size fits all approach to things like this, but I’d appreciate any advice you have. Thanks!

Hey Nate B - sorry to hear about your experience. We have general recommendations outlined in the article, Pain in Training: What do?

If your pain experience is creeping into daily living, then that is usually a sufficient cue for me to start regulating training more. Regarding specific movements to address your experience, tough to say without a consultation and getting more information. You can try altering dosage of activity and loading for the specific movements you mentioned above and see how that goes. If you are interested in a consultation with us, please complete our intake paperwork HERE.

Thanks for the response. For the time being, I’ll try tinkering with the loading of the few training movements that seem to cause pain. I’ll also give some of the light shoulder girdle rehab exercises for the motions that cause the pain to flare up that worked in years past a try (maybe at the end of a few of my training sessions per week). Probably wouldn’t hurt, right? I’ll reach out if my situation doesn’t improve/worsens. Thanks!