Little bit of background, I have been doing strength training since 2017. I have an old injury on right shoulder (over 15 years) which lead to chronic instability over the years (sorry don’t know the medical terms for my condition). So, generally when I throw my arm or receive ball in extended form I feel a brief dislocation accompanied with acute and brief pain. Give it a minute and it’s gone. I would like to think lifting and doing rotator cuff and other corrective/rehab exercises have helped me tremendously, however playing volleyball causes shoulder pain for me every week, even-though the pain does not linger after play sessions usually.
My left shoulder however, suffers from Bicep Tendonitis (diagnosed by a Physio) since 4-5 months ago. It heals slowly, but again during volleyball It tends to hurt when I occasionally over extend my arms or try to hit the ball in motion with one arm.
How should I deal with this situation. Is there anyway to completely recover or these types of injury will always stay?
Shoulder - have you previously dislocated the shoulder? What volleyball movements in particular are you noticing symptoms with or is it general game-play? What does your training schedule (both resistance training and volleyball) look like?
Bicipital tendinopathy - you’d likely get a ton of information from this article by Jason Eure https://www.strongerbyscience.com/biceps-tendinopathy/
What did rehab look like for the bicipital tendinopathy? Often in these scenarios its a question of dosage of the provocative activity (volleyball) and finding a good starting point with tolerable symptoms to build from.
Thanks Mike,
I’m in my early 30s, both my shoulders suffer from tendinopathy however the cause for each were different. My right was injured when I was 15 yo when I fell and tried to keep my face from hitting the ground. Ever since, my right has suffered subluxation every-time I throw something or serve or spike in Volleyball.
My left shoulder tho, got injusred 9 months ago due to shoulder overuse (combine lifting overhead, volleyball and wrestling, I know). I took NSAIDs for a while and rested and slowly reintroduced shoulder workouts back in my routine over past 6 months (no pressing tho except bench, it still hurts if I load up). It seems hitting the ball overhead agitates it the most, I cannot dead hang or pull up much either. Only saw a physio for my left once and she showed me hanging my arm with light weights to create space between tendon and shoulder socket. My left has been much better for the past 4-6 months but gets aggravated from time to time. My right also gets painful after an intense session of volleyball mostly involving serving and spiking.
I will check out the article, and I will really appreciate any furthur inputs.
Cheers
If we are labeling this a tendinopathy then the goal is going to be managing loading to the affected areas. Usually for sport based athletes such as volleyball, we typically regulate gameplay in practice and competition based on time. If symptoms aren’t regressing then we may remove gameplay all together and slowly dose in fundamental aspects of gameplay and build from there. I typically advocate for dosing in isolation movement to the affected areas to help with loading tolerance and improving strength of the area. We’d also need to regulate loading of the affected areas with resistance training while symptoms regress. Typically this involves using RPE, adding in tempo, increasing rep range to help decrease external intensity, etc. Case context matters a lot here and this is where I’d advise a consult with us to help guide this path for you: Contact Us | Barbell Medicine