Shoulder injury

I've busted my left shoulder! (TNS!)

I can't believe it! It's only after Week 2 of training! (TNS X2!)

No, I didn't bust my left shoulder muscles or tore it to bits. I've injured my front shoulder ligament (coracoacromial ligament) that connects my left shoulder blade (scapula) to my upper back part of the shoulder blade (acromion).

How do you distinguish the injuries? Simple.

Muscle soreness typically goes away after 3 days and in some serious cases 4/5 days. If you have adequately worn out your muscles during training, recovery should typically be around 3 days. Also, soreness should be limited to the broad muscle area.

Bone or tendon injuries result in a more acute pain usually around the joint area. Pain lasts much longer, typically over a week. If so, quickly see an orthopaedic or a "tit tar sifu". I have opted for the latter. Will touch on this in my next post...

If I'm not wrong, I sustained this injury early last week when I was training chest and biceps (Day 1 Training Programme). Please refer to my earlier post for details of my Training Programme.

Chest? But how can chest training involve shoulder muscles too? Well, chest training is a compound movement. This means although the chest muscles are primarily trained, it also involves secondary muscles such as shoulders and triceps.

Injuries can happen whenever and wherever...not withstanding the amount of weight you carry. The risk is certainly greater when you are lifting heavy weights. In my case, my weights were light but challenging enough to provide the requisite intensity. Plus, my rest period is short so that I'm able to maintain the intensity level. I suspect the main cause of my injury is because I don't do any warm-up exercises before starting on my working sets. Big @$$ mistake!

In my defence, due to my various commitments etc I don't have much time for working out. I would be in and out of the gym within an hour and each training session lasts approximately 45 mins. My training programmes are designed in such a way to maximise the workout intensity at the least amount of time. The high reps also double up as cardio for me.

I guess I should now incorporate at least 5 mins of warm-up exercises before hitting my working sets. Better safe than sorry (just like using protection!) *Guffaw!*

Just when I'm finally in motion again and progressing well with my training, I've to sustain this injury and be out of action! (TNS X3!)

Sigh...I guess it has to be boring cardio on threadmill/stepper/elliptical machines for the time being...*Yawn!* How inspiring...