Shoulder pain with thrusters

[Craig Lomita]

Anyone ever experience this? When I do thrusters, I feel a sharpish pain in both shoulders with the overhead motion, even with a relatively lighter weight (65 lbs or so). The weird thing is, I have no problems with push presses with a heavier weight (@ 135 lbs).

Granted, I'm not flexible enough in my arms to properly rack the weight during the squat portion (I do front squats with my arms crossed instead.) I'm thinking that may have something to do with it, what with the weight being in front of my center of gravity. Or I may be crazy.

Sorry if this was addressed in a previous thread, I searched and came up with nada.

[Denis Kanygin]

Hi Craig,

There is a really good chance that the pain comes from rounded shoulders, muscle imbalance(pecks overpowering back muscles) and lack of flexibility and rom as a result.

There are few things you can do.

Check the proper ROM. Stand against a wall.

Bring your arms to your sides, palms on the wall.

Glide arms up to the shoulder level while keeping shoulder blades, elbows, wrists and hands on the wall.

Rotate palms up.

Keep on going. Note how far you can go WITHOUT arching your back or moving elbows/hands away from wall.

A drill that you may want to make a part of your training is carrying a weight(kettlebell or dumbbell) over your head. (Link to youtube video of kettlebell "waiters walk", generally safe")

this should help.

cheers,

Denis Kanygin

[Blair Robert Lowe]

I think a thruster has more velocity than even a push press. Coupled with some tightness somewhere in the shoulders and that sounds like it will lead to aggravation of something.

[John Douros]

Does it continue hurting after you're done? I've torn both of my rotator cuffs due to snowboarding injuries 6+ years ago, and they still hurt when I do shoulder exercises like thrusters. They hurt even worse after I'm done with my workout, but some ibuprofin takes care of that.

[Tim Wheeler]

I had that problem awhile back. I went with a more narrow grip pretty much like a front squat grip or clean position. I had my hands too wide when I first started. My buddy had the same problem and fixed it the same way. Hope that helps.

[Craig Lomita]

Thanks for all the great advice guys. You've all been dead on in describing me; my chest is stronger than my back, my shoulders are relatively inflexible, and in order to compensate for that I probably have been using too wide a grip. You guys have a hidden camera in my gym?

I'm pretty sure I don't have a cuff tear, none of the provocative tests cause any pain (I'm an orthopod resident, and had a few of my attendings check me out.)

I have been working on shoulder flexibility with shoulder dislocations and light OH squats though, so maybe it's time for me to try thrusters again with very light weight after taking a few months off them.

Thanks again, I appreciate the help.

[Justin McGinley]

Add the samson stretch to your warmup, and concentrate on driving you arms to the sky. Point your fingers upwards and get your arms to your ears and as vertical as possible. This did wonders for my shoulder flexibility.

http://www.dietsite.com/dt/exercisep.../stretch13.asp (wfs)

[Justin Algera]

One thing I find with thrusters as well, especially at lighter weights, is that form goes to crap at the top because its not too heavy so people tend to "loosen" their shoulders up a bit more and just "throw" the weight up. Its kind of like losing the tightness at the end of a deadlift and throwing your back out. This is why during Fran a lot of times there are shoulder injuries because a number of time people just drop while doing pull-ups instead of actively pushing off and keeping the shoulders engaged. Add that to the thruster issues, and it becomes too much for the joint to handle.

[Craig Lomita]

That's a good point, I definitely feel like my shoulders are "loose" at the top, especially with lighter weight, almost like I'm distracting the joint. I find it hard to keep the movement explosive, while at the same time keeping my shoulders tight. Guess I'll keep working at it.

[Craig Lomita]

Quick update: thrusters are definitely coming along. I think a major problem was flexibility, which was causing me to hold the bar slightly in front of my body instead of directly over my head. I've been working on form and flexibility, and I'm already seeing noticeable improvements (though it may be the dreaded placebo effect I'm also making sure to "lock" my shoulders at the top, as previously suggested.

Thanks again for your (collective) advice.

CL