125 - Mailbox - On productive long term training

“The Illustrated Wolfe” enquires about weight training, striking and shoulder pain...

“Quick question... I have somehow hurt something in my shoulder I think from punching too hard without being warm enough or perhaps from weights not sure.. I am reading as much as I can and started doing some light physio stuff with a resistance band to try sort it out (really sucks! As I don’t want anything to get in the way of training) do you have any suggestions? I simply can’t handle taking any kind of further break from training it will drive me nuts!

I think it’s a shoulder impingement.

Any thoughts at all would be great! But I’ll keep doing the lights physio stuff I found on YouTube in the meantime.”

…………………………………………………………………………..

Thanks for the email. I'm familiar with the misery of a nagging shoulder injury as an “avid” collector of them over the years – dislocations ( and self reset – that one was fun!), impingements, tightness and a torn rotator cuff from getting shoved across a room and hitting a wall once. It's usually a slow and, ideally, a careful path back to full function.

Shoulder pain – especially from impingement is very common in active men and women. I worked years ago in London at a sports injuries clinic doing deep tissue work on referral from a physio – shoulders and backs are how they pay the mortgage!

Now, I'm just going on what you're telling me in the email and it's not a diagnosis or anything but here's a couple of thoughts from experience.

Keep it warm – rather than the ice advice you get from so many which slows inflammation, keep it warm. Wear a sweat shirt, t shirt rather than vest when you're active or when you sleep .

It'll help keep blood flowing through the injury site and aid the repair. It'll also help to not reinjure through being cold.

Impingement syndrome is very common in sports like swimming where the small muscle that feeds through the shoulder joint literally gets ground between bones and inflamed. Weight training is another classic cause – especially bench pressing. Chest pressing movements can also cause imbalances between the pectoral muscles and the rotator cuff if over emphasised in a routine.

These conditions can lay the groundwork for disfunction and then punching with possibly excessive force and using a corkscrew motion with the fist (thumb turns downward on impact) on mitts/ bags/ training dummies etc can cause injury.

Now as you'll hear me say in workshops , I teach survival fighting/ self defence not boxing/combat sports or martial arts but this is one of the reasons that I prefer using the thumb up lead punch as if applied with good structure will ring bells without crunching the shoulder. There's other reasons too but I'll stay on shoulder health.

Unless you're forking out on private treatment, it'll be a self referral to the NHS physio and a wait. My experience was always a printed sheet handed to me and sent on my way.

There are some great resources on YouTube and so on. They're possibly where the 12 year old physio you eventually get an appointment with is grifting half his ideas from – some are better than others. Make sure to get one who at least trains in something and understands that sitting on your ass at home isn't an option.

Things that have worked for me and other trainers that I've known in the past for this type of problem:

Static holds for the shoulder girdle

Strengthen up the shoulder girdle with static holds. Just the start of a push up position held for time at the top. Don't go down to the floor just hold at the top. Keep good posture, shoulders back and down.

This helped me train the shoulder and regain some strength without doing pressing. Start moving in the top position laterally back and forth to increase the effect when you're ready. Be really gentle and take breaks as needed. Little and often through the day.

Light kettlebell/ dumbbell shrugs done bent over. Just let the weight hang and shrug the shoulder blade gently back.

Move on to holding the weight in the same position and just gently make small circles with a straight arm. Keep the shoulder blade in position.

Standing shrugs too. Never roll the shoulders. Don’t relax at the bottom and stretch the joint.

Dump any pressing movements for a while until the shoulders better. Bench, push ups etc. Stick to static holds. Consider dropping them altogether from a routine if they cause twinges etc.

Look into rotator cuff exercises. Keep them in your routine so that you don’t go through this again.

Stretch the chest muscles – a lot.

Get some massage.

Drink lots of water and look at foods that may cause inflammation and add to the problem.

When you’re ready, focus on accuracy and mechanics by doing any striking movements as slowly as possible. Don't do any full fight speed training until function and strength have returned.

These two qualities are far more important than just power. A lot of people “over hit” putting way more force into strikes than is needed.

Straight to power with no time spent feeling the movement is a good way to injury. When practicing striking, spend time at low speed before slowly increasing the tempo.

It can seem frustrating to be held back sometimes by an injury but we're training for life not competition. We want to remain able to defend ourselves for as long as possible and if we're lucky enough to reach old age to still be able to retain some agency by not having damaged our selves when younger.

The adversity of a minor injury is also great for testing resilience.

In training, in fighting and in life, some give up at the slightest thing, others never give in.

Never.

They just find another way.

Hope this helps mate. J

Questions or comments? Drop me an email.