Odd pull-up injury

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged
Isn't the pullup with kipping supposed to be a sort of rounded motion as in you push yourself away from the bar and you let yourself down in a controlled manner? You may wanna check out your form and/or just be a bit more careful. I realized that when I tried to kip I would try to push my head too far through at the bottom which gave my bicep tendons some probs. Just gotta see if there's anything you can fix

Yup, my crappy kipping form is likely a big culprit. It tends to be especially bad when I'm rushing through workouts (as is often the case in CF) and my biggest weakness is the downward portion of the motion. I'll need to slow down and take care to get things right.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged
Isn't the pullup with kipping supposed to be a sort of rounded motion as in you push yourself away from the bar and you let yourself down in a controlled manner? You may wanna check out your form and/or just be a bit more careful. I realized that when I tried to kip I would try to push my head too far through at the bottom which gave my bicep tendons some probs. Just gotta see if there's anything you can fix

Yup, my crappy kipping form is likely a big culprit. It tends to be especially bad when I'm rushing through workouts (as is often the case in CF) and my biggest weakness is the downward portion of the motion. I'll need to slow down and take care to get things right.

Yep, no worries. Remember, the point of CF is to balance great form and high intensity. If you have to back off on the intensity a little bit to improve form, then that's what needs to happen. You don't want to worry about chronic shoulder problems when working out.

 

[brikis98]

Update

Did a workout today that involved 5 rounds of max reps for pull-ups. I did my usual warm-up, then some rotator cuff exercises, and then did a few warm-up pull-ups. The first few there was a bit of pain in the usual spot on the right side, but afterwards it felt more or less fine. However, something new and odd happened after a few more: it felt like I had a cramp on both sides. I can't exactly tell which muscle(s) it was, but from this diagram, I'd say it's in the area where #13, 3, 5 and 6 meet up. The cramping feeling remained through out the workout and much of the night after. It was not at all painful - felt more sore and tight than anything else - and only adds to my confusion. Perhaps it's unrelated - especially since it happened on both sides - but pull-ups seem to be having odd effects on me again. I'll wait and see what I feel like tomorrow.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Perhaps it was the rotator cuff exercises on top of the max effort for pullups that caused the cramping. I honestly wouldn't have done that if I were you. Max effort is not what you want to do when you have a potential shoulder injury. In my personal opinion, you shouldn't do anything even close to max effort until you are pain free for at least a month.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged
Perhaps it was the rotator cuff exercises on top of the max effort for pullups that caused the cramping. I honestly wouldn't have done that if I were you. Max effort is not what you want to do when you have a potential shoulder injury. In my personal opinion, you shouldn't do anything even close to max effort until you are pain free for at least a month.

You're probably right in that I should've avoided max effort, but I'm a stubborn ass

However, the cramping started VERY early on - just a few reps in - so I don't think the max effort was what really caused it. I feel fine today - no cramping or pain - and I have no pull-ups coming up until next Saturday. In the meantime, I'll do some more stretching, rotator cuff exercises and take some advil in case there is any swelling.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged
Perhaps it was the rotator cuff exercises on top of the max effort for pullups that caused the cramping. I honestly wouldn't have done that if I were you. Max effort is not what you want to do when you have a potential shoulder injury. In my personal opinion, you shouldn't do anything even close to max effort until you are pain free for at least a month.

You're probably right in that I should've avoided max effort, but I'm a stubborn ass

However, the cramping started VERY early on - just a few reps in - so I don't think the max effort was what really caused it. I feel fine today - no cramping or pain - and I have no pull-ups coming up until next Saturday. In the meantime, I'll do some more stretching, rotator cuff exercises and take some advil in case there is any swelling.

Good idea and I know what you mean. I aggravated my shoulder and got tendinitis in my hip because I was too stubborn to sub the CF workouts Btw, I think if your should if giving you complications like this, a doctor's visit might be in order. It's better to get it fixed than to "just deal," y'know? It just seems like a muscle strain or muscle weakness, but obviously I'm not an M.D. It could potentially be a small tear, ligament damage, etc. However, to find that out, you'd probably have to have an MRI and I'm sure that's more hassle than most people want to go through for a shoulder.

 

[brikis98]

Another update

I've scheduled an appointment with a chiropractor for today. It's one of the practitioners listed on the Active Release Therapy website, and they claim to have sport injury expertise, so hopefully they are credible. At any rate, it should be better than me trying to guess what's wrong.

I'll update later with whatever info I get. Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[brikis98]

So, I went to the chiro/ART guy yesterday:

* He doesn't think it's anything serious
* If I recall the names properly, he believes that the injured muscles are the infraspinatus and the teres minor, both involved in the rotator cuff. He did not think the long head of the tricep, the rhomboids or lats were involved.
* He performed 4 release techniques and said they should help a little bit. He didn't expect it to magically be 100% after one visit, but said that it should feel better next time I do pull-ups.
* I was surprised he did not advise me to avoid pull-ups, but actually told me to try it out again, see how it feels, and come in the following week for some more treatment.

I'm not sure what to think really. The visit lasted no more than 5 minutes total and while the release techniques felt good, I'm somehow skeptical they will help. I hope he's not just trying to get me in for extra appointments...

Anyways, I will continue doing rotator cuff exercises and taking advil. Saturday is my next workout that has pull-ups and I'll post another update then.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Originally posted by: brikis98
So, I went to the chiro/ART guy yesterday:

* He doesn't think it's anything serious
* If I recall the names properly, he believes that the injured muscles are the infraspinatus and the teres minor, both involved in the rotator cuff. He did not think the long head of the tricep, the rhomboids or lats were involved.
* He performed 4 release techniques and said they should help a little bit. He didn't expect it to magically be 100% after one visit, but said that it should feel better next time I do pull-ups.
* I was surprised he did not advise me to avoid pull-ups, but actually told me to try it out again, see how it feels, and come in the following week for some more treatment.

I'm not sure what to think really. The visit lasted no more than 5 minutes total and while the release techniques felt good, I'm somehow skeptical they will help. I hope he's not just trying to get me in for extra appointments...

Anyways, I will continue doing rotator cuff exercises and taking advil. Saturday is my next workout that has pull-ups and I'll post another update then.

Why is that surprising? He's a chiropractor. They make money from their regulars - i.e. you.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: KnightBreed
Why is that surprising? He's a chiropractor. They make money from their regulars - i.e. you.

It's surprising for a number of reasons:

1. This guy was recommended to me by a number of people and has good credentials. I'm sure there are many crappy chiropractors out there, but IMO, the profession gets an undeserved bad wrap in general.
2. From a decent human & doctor perspective, you wouldn't expect someone to send you out there if they thought there was a good chance of you re-injuring yourself.
3. From a money perspective, it's bad business to have your clients injure themselves by following your advice. I would not become a "regular" if I kept getting hurt when following his instructions...

Anyways, this is all clearly speculation. Come Saturday, I'll see if there is any improvement and take it from there.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: KnightBreed
Why is that surprising? He's a chiropractor. They make money from their regulars - i.e. you.

It's surprising for a number of reasons:

1. This guy was recommended to me by a number of people and has good credentials. I'm sure there are many crappy chiropractors out there, but IMO, the profession gets an undeserved bad wrap in general.
2. From a decent human & doctor perspective, you wouldn't expect someone to send you out there if they thought there was a good chance of you re-injuring yourself.
3. From a money perspective, it's bad business to have your clients injure themselves by following your advice. I would not become a "regular" if I kept getting hurt when following his instructions...

Anyways, this is all clearly speculation. Come Saturday, I'll see if there is any improvement and take it from there.

You may be right. For your case, I hope this guy is legit.

Strangely enough, I have a pain in my right shoulder that sounds very similar to yours. A dull ache in the teres minor area right below/under the deltoid. The pain goes away after a decent warmup, but starts to ache again after it tightens up.

 

[gramboh]

I attended a 90min kipping pull-up session at OPT (CrossFit Calgary) last month and one of the things Brett Marshall taught was that ideally, the kipping pull-up should have a small range of motion in terms of the movement of the head at the bottom/top. When learning you generally have a big range since you need that swing to turn over the hips and get up, but over time if you watch the skilled people they do not move very much in terms of fore/aft (if you looked from the side). I'm still a total noob at kipping but the seminar was a huge help.

 

[brikis98]

Update:

This past Saturday I did another workout that involved (many) pull-ups. Once again, I had the pain in the back of the right shoulder during the first 8-10 pull-ups and then the pain went away completely. The only difference was that the next day (Sunday), that part of my right shoulder was fairly sore. It did not feel like an injury, but just normal muscle soreness. Not sure if that's a good sign or not.

Today (Monday), I went to the chiro/ART guy for the second time. He seems pretty sure that this is purely a muscular injury based on the location of the pain as well as the symptoms (such as the pain going away once I'm warmed up). He did some more release techniques today which felt great and then showed me some really nice rotator cuff stretches which I'll add to my routine. I'm still not convinced this is actually helping, but I figure I'll give him a try for 1-2 appointments more (1 per week). If I don't see any real improvement after that, I think I'll try other options, such as seeing an orthopedist. In the meantime, I'm going to continue doing pull-ups - I guess the one good thing is that while the injury doesn't seem to be getting any better, it doesn't seem like my workouts are making it any worse... hopefully

 

[brikis98]

Update, 09/22

Yesterday's workout included L pull-ups, which I had never done before. As it turns out, they put a lot more stress on the rotator cuff than normal pull-ups, so it hurt quite a bit more than normal. However, as usual, the pain went away after a few minutes.

Today, that area in my shoulder was a bit tender and didn't feel great. However, I had another appointment with the chiro/ART guy and he did some release techniques that were quite a bit deeper than the previous ones. It hurt quite a bit as he did it, but in a good way, and felt amazing after. He definitely found the exact spot of the injury and it feels quite a bit better now. However, I still don't know if it's actually helping to heal the injury overall or just treating some of the symptoms. I believe my next workout with pull-ups is on thursday, so I'll see how it is then.

As I said before, I was giving the chiro/ART guy 2 more appointments to see if he'll help, which means he's got one left (next Monday). If after that I still don't see much improvement, I'll head to an orthopedist.

 

[eits]

marked for later... pm me if you want

 

[brikis98]

Update, 09/26

I had a workout yesterday that included muscle-ups and to my surprise, I found that my injury seems to be a lot better. The first pull-up or two still hurt, but noticeably less than before, and after that, the pain was essentially gone. Perhaps this chiro/ART guy really did something last time with that extra deep treatment, maybe it's healing on its own, or maybe this was just a random fluke. Still, it's a good sign and I hope I the trend continues.

 

[brikis98]

Update, 09/29

Had another appointment with the chiro/ART guy today. He did some more of the deep tissue release stuff and quickly found a couple spots where I had felt tightness w/o any word for me. Pretty impressive how he can feel that stuff out and it felt a lot better once he was done. He's saying that the muscle in that area is looking a lot better and that the pain I'm feeling is likely just nerves getting caught in whatever muscle knots/scars are left. As I saw significant improvement after last week's session (see the 9/26 update), I'm going to go for another couple sessions with him and see if I can get back to 100%.

 

[eits]

Originally posted by: brikis98
Update, 09/29

Had another appointment with the chiro/ART guy today. He did some more of the deep tissue release stuff and quickly found a couple spots where I had felt tightness w/o any word for me. Pretty impressive how he can feel that stuff out and it felt a lot better once he was done. He's saying that the muscle in that area is looking a lot better and that the pain I'm feeling is likely just nerves getting caught in whatever muscle knots/scars are left. As I saw significant improvement after last week's session (see the 9/26 update), I'm going to go for another couple sessions with him and see if I can get back to 100%.

:thumbsup: for chiropractic

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: eits

Originally posted by: brikis98
Update, 09/29

Had another appointment with the chiro/ART guy today. He did some more of the deep tissue release stuff and quickly found a couple spots where I had felt tightness w/o any word for me. Pretty impressive how he can feel that stuff out and it felt a lot better once he was done. He's saying that the muscle in that area is looking a lot better and that the pain I'm feeling is likely just nerves getting caught in whatever muscle knots/scars are left. As I saw significant improvement after last week's session (see the 9/26 update), I'm going to go for another couple sessions with him and see if I can get back to 100%.

:thumbsup: for chiropractic

Thread necro for a thumbs up? Odd.

 

[Deeko]

Hey brikis, how is this doing?

 

[brikis98]

Haven't updated this thread in a while, so here's the latest:

My injury is 99% gone. I feel the tiniest twinge on the first pull-up and after that, pretty much all is well. I'm frankly amazed and fairly convinced the ART stuff the chiro guy did was the main reason for the recovery. I saw very little improvement for a number of weeks until he got in there and did some very deep release work. After that, each week the injury got better and better. I have another appointment this coming Monday, but that should be the last, at least until my next injury. BTW, thanks for the advice everyone.