I have a short side story here too. My best friend in highschool/college has shoulder issues when he was young. As a freshman in college he picked up Handball and developed pain in his shoulder so much so that he couldnt use it. He went to the doctor and turns out he had bone cancer. Long story short, he is fine now but minus the entire shoulder joint. He has a metal rod that acts as his clavicle and upper humerus. It is very scary to think about issues like this so make sure if you have something that persitsts make sure to get it checked out by a profesional.

I had a surgical procedure (called a debridement) to clean all of that out, but the pain and limited mobility persisted. The only thing that’s helped has been Synvisc, a synthetic cartilage that’s injected into the joint via guided ultrasound. I’m on my second of three injections, and finally, after 7 months, much of the pain is gone and a lot of mobility is restored. My doctors tell me this good result probably will last a year, provided I don’t resuming a lot of CrossFit type weight bearing stuff, which likely will undo a lot of the progress. So it looks like most things from here on in will be light and scaled for me. I can think of worse things. I’m just really grateful that a lot of the pain is gone and that I can move my shoulder almost normally (i.e. by normal standards, not CrossFit standards).

Another thing my doctors tell me about Synvisc: Results are varied, meaning that it only works with some people in some joints. When injected into the shoulder, only some people feel relief. It’s far more effective when injected into the knee (there’s a 95% success rate in knees). It’s also incredibly expensive and often not covered by insurance. One should look on-line for the best deal (the way it works at my hospital is that patients procure it themselves and bring it in to have it injected).

I hope some readers find this info useful. Best, Susan

Depending on which articulations hurt, and which tests are position, and given specific locations it can be any number of things.

The most common one you get with anterior delt is indeed anterior delt pain, but also long head biceps tendinopathy especially with a large volume of pullups. Most people I’ve seen have a huge amount of trigger points in the coracobrachial, biceps brachii, and brachioradialis.

Similarly, stuff like pec tendonitis can masquerade as anterior shoulder pain since the insertion is close by.

But in general, the problems with shoulder can be boiled down to:

1. Poor posture
2. Limited mobility
3. Muscle imbalances

And one to the extreme or combination of these 3 maladies can and will cause pain and injury. It’s just figuring out what you have to do to fix it.