For me right now, it's a shoulder issue.  Bicep tendonitis at the least.  The front area where the tendon sits is raw as hell.  I've been dealing with shoulder pain for a few months after discomfort caused by shoulder and bench pressing.  I stopped chest and shoulders all together, but have been doing the run of the mill rotator cuff exercises.  Which have done exactly squat in helping.  

Yesterday I said fuck it and did machine flies.  Very low weight and very controlled short ROM.  Same raw painful feeling this morning.  It seems to get better a while after exercise.  It ranges from no pain to maybe a 4 or 5 out of ten depending on time of day.

So I guess I'm asking if I should just push through and say the hell with it?  Go back to chest and shoulder exercises and deal with the pain.  I do have bicep tendonitis and I'm 99% sure I have a labral tear.  I'm not going to the doc anytime soon as they would at most give me a cortisone shot.  Surgery for labral tears is all but pointless.  Any other options that I'm missing?

Thanks

No.

Pain  is your body telling you something is wrong. Fix it.

Go to an orthopedic office to get scanned to know for sure. Then try the physical therapy for a while.

^ This and ice.  LOTS of ice after you workout.

Injured and hurt and different things.

You don't work through an injury you work on healing it.

If you're just hurt, you'll be fine, rub some dirt in it.

Sounds like you are injured, don't work through it it it won't ever heal, get yourself patched up. NSAIDS or steroids, ice, mobility work and massage.

Lay off upper body for a couple weeks. Or only do stuff with minimal Delt activation.

I do external rotations on the cable machine every trip to the gym, light weight, elbow tucked in, scapula as close to my spine as physically possible, chest out... Tiny ROM like 5-6 inches.

I have impingement arthritis in my right shoulder. Years ago I went to a PT and she
taught me how to right the ship.  She noted that being dehydrated can also aid in flare ups. Those cheap ass
bands they give you do help
AthlenX basically is saying what she said and she had me doing these exercises
here

FACEPULLS!!!

I still do them to this day

I have been feeling the same for months now, it feels better after the gym ironically but reappears few hours later. I finally worked my way up to doing deadlifts this past weekend. And my arm has felt unbelievably better this week so far. Not sure how or why, but I'm ok with it.

Face pulls this morning

How'd it feel?

The day you made this thread, I hit the gym to do some core work.
Everything felt fine at the time, but later that night and especially yesterday my trap by the right side of my neck went haywire! Spasms, tightness, general pain... Couldn't turn my head lol.

Used cold packs off and on all day yesterday, and miraculously it was all good today!

Stupid leg raises (well, knee raises) in a Captains chair is what did it. 😤

I have moderate shoulder pain in my right shoulder if I do flies or bench heavy.

For the past several months I've gone to light weight high rep benches(like 150 reps over 6 sets).

Shoulder pain is minimal and lessening now. Still feel like I'm getting a good workout. But I don't do any flies at all. I'm 52 fwiw.

25 reps a set?

Fuuuuuuuck that

Not bad.  I also did DB laterals with stupid light weight.  The shoulder is mildly achy when I work out, but usually never goes above a 2 or 3 out of 10.  It's all over the place.  I definitely have bicep tendonitis.  That front groove point is raw as hell and anything bicep related is uncomfortable.  What gets me is I'll have this nagging pain under my shoulder blade.  Around the top of the shoulder, and then under the shoulder in the arm pit area.  The pain moves from place to place randomly.  Overall, it just feels like my shoulder is more loose than it should be.  I don't really "trust" it when I extend my arm.

It's only like 116 lbs lol.

I can get volume that way and it doesn't hurt my shoulder. I'm no expert, but it seems to work. Certainly open to better ideas.

I dunno, I'm just a beginner and still learning. But I stick to the 8-12 rep range, if I can bang out way more reps, that means the need to bump up in weight. Orrrrrr slow the eccentric and get a giant stretch.

But if it works for you, and you're comfortable... Carry on!

After having the trouble I had I moved my grip out a finger or so on each side and lower to the bottom of my chest muscles instead of slightly above my nipples...nipples

I think replying to this post cursed me. First the sore right trap by my neck...

Now I'm 90% sure I developed a shoulder impingement in my left shoulder. Only thing I can think of that would've caused that yesterday was doing dips. 🤬

Going to be fun to work around!

I'm about to turn 50 and through my life I've always found working through things was better than not working out.

I had a shoulder injury around late January. Honestly I don't know what exactly did it, but I noticed it at the gym. One day at work I sneezed and felt a horrible pain. It hurt bad for weeks. I had to stop lifting completely. I couldn't do any of my routine. Switched to cardio only for weeks, just to stay in the habit of going to the gym.

I was worried, it was a lingering issue.

I ordered some bpc-157 and tb-500, injected into my delt on the side that was bothering me. Holy shit, 2-3 weeks of "wolverine protocol" and I was nearly good as new. I couldn't fucking believe it.

I'm killing it lately at the gym. PRd my deadlift last night.

After an injury I've never really done more than treat it like a deload.  Take a week off then start the beginning of a routine using linear progression over 6 weeks starting with super low weight and adding 10 pounds to compounds every workout.  By the end of the 7 weeks (one week off followed by 6 weeks of linear progression getting back to where I was pre-injury) I've always been ready to get back into what ever I was doing pre-injury.  This not only helped me heal, but also kept me from losing much ground during the rehab.

This. Pushing through doesn't earn you any extra points.

You'll make more progress if you let the issue heal and train pain-free.


If you are in pain from something. You're doing something wrong. Too much volume & frequency tends to lead to nagging pain for me.

There is soreness, and there is pain.

Soreness i will often fight through and then my body loosens up.

Pain is indicative of an injury, which you will probably make worse by pushing through.  

Not going to say I have done it for decades....but just know that you take a risk.

A couple of rest days is better than a couple of months of physical therapy.

I'm 46 years old.

I've learned this lesson the hard way and refused to listen to my elders who tried to convey this wisdom to me when I was younger so, I hope you hear me out.  Do NOT ignore pain, address it smartly.  

The break down of your body as you get older is natural and dealing with it has to become a part of your fitness routine.  You go to a Doctor, you get an MRI, you diagnose what is going on and you start to get into the process of addressing the problem whether that's surgery or physical therapy.  

In general, at my age now the recovery after the workout is equally as important as the workout itself.  I know what to ice and what to heat and I know how to space out my workouts so that I don't overtrain to the point of flarring up injuries.   This is something very subjective to me and so are my actual workouts.  I workout on the movements I know I can do perfect form on and that I know I'm damn good at doing now.  I'm not looking to "confuse" the muscle groups to squeek out 2% more gains this year at the cost of increasing risk of injury.  Steady, tried, and true is what I'm after now, because for me it's the consistency that matters just as much as the effort.  Going into the gym and just destroying myself does me ZERO good if I can't get into the gym on a regular frequest basis after because I'm messed up.  Slow and steady wins the race every single time.

There might be some exercises you just can't or shouldn't do. I've had periods coming back from an injury where I've had to start at a ridiculous light weight and that can be frustrating, but it's so worth it to have patience with yourself.  You'd be amazed what your body can do after just half a year to a year of slowly working up tiny bit by tiny bit, time flies, a year is nothing and if you come through it reaching a point where you're back on top then it's worth it.  I don't compare myself to others anymore, I don't worry about what the dude next to me is doing, fitness for me is an entirely self-centered thing.  It's just me vs. me in the gym.

I'll tell ya what, a lot of men think they know how to lift free weights.  They do it for years and years and think "I know what I'm doing," when in fact they are using terrible form.   A lot of us have learned from magazines, or friends, or that high school Football coach you had a decade back, but that doesn't mean you're doing your lifts correctly.   I don't know a man alive who can't benefit from a second pair of trained eyes to watch him and check his form.  Even professional top tier body builders hire trainers.  Guys will spend thousands on all kinds of dumb stuff, but will not spend a dime to at least spend a few sessions with a good trainer to check their form from time to time and it's insane.

One of the things that I do that helps me as well, is the use of bands.  I love the Mark Bell sling shot for bench press.  That thing has given me a second life when it comes to my bench press.   It keeps your elbows from flaring out and it gives you that tiny bit of assist when the weight is shifting more to the shoulders on the press.

For the past month maybe,  I am doing Machine Flys. 4 or 5 sets of 10 to 20 reps. Super light weight.  Painstakingly slow and controlled.  It  sucks.  But I can do it without pain.  My day to day pain is pretty much 0.

I tried adding Machine presses too for the past couple workouts.  I'm really trying to get a pump in my chest without using my shoulders,  but I think mechanically,  it's not possible.
I'm trying to convince myself to go ahead and try dumbells again,  but I'm being reluctant.