Shoulder pain?

I often have discomfort/pain at the front of my left shoulder, more annoyance than severe pain. It’s usually associated with movement, but load does not appear to matter. Bench press does not cause any issues, but I often feel it with OHP or chin-ups. It’s not constant or entirely predictable. It’s been going on for a couple of months and I can’t recall any precipitating event.

How should I go about figuring out what the problem might be and what can be done about it?

Hey @quark , not sure it’s necessary to find a “problem” needing fixed based on the information you’ve provided. Rather, find a tolerable load with the movements you are having symptoms with. This will likely help guide the path: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdwj5ORPmX0.

Hi Michael, the problem is that the pain/discomfort is independent of load. If it’s going to hurt, it will hurt with no load and adding load does not make it any worse.

Therefore, the standard “find a movement pattern and load you can tolerate and titrate up (load, range of motion or both)” does not seem applicable.

Gotcha. You mentioned overhead press and chin-ups, have you tried different variations of these movements? Example instead of strict overhead press with pronated grip on a barbell, try machine neutral grip press. Instead of chin-ups, standard pull-ups or lat-pull downs. If it’s bothersome enough, then I’d recommend a consult with us: Contact Us | Barbell Medicine.

It’s not so bothersome as to interfere significantly with training; it’s just bothersome to notice (or worse) my shoulder a large percentage of the time I move my left arm.

My current strategy for training is essentially to ignore it. For example, I’ll start OHPs, note that my shoulder is twinging, note that it’s not getting any worse, continue OHPs and, with enough focus on the OHPs I usually can block any bother from the shoulder.

It’s harder to use this strategy effectively with normal activity. I’ll notice the shoulder when, e.g., taking an item from a shelf, but the activity is too short to do anything but feel it.

I suppose the immediate answers are to live with it or sign up for a consult (or seek some third party solution). Is that about it?