Most Common Injury in the Gym

By far the most common injury that we see in the gym is shoulder pain. This often comes from overhead pressing movements that are too heavy, have been performed with too many reps, or done with improper techniques. Many times there is an underlying range of motion/mobility deficits that leads to poor lifting mechanics. Over time, this can irritate any number of structures in the shoulder, most commonly the rotator cuff and sometimes the labrum, when we're dealing with stability issues. 

Your rotator cuff is responsible for stabilizing your shoulder and performing the initial 30 degrees of abduction range of motion. You can also think of them as the little muscles that help the big muscles in your shoulder do the heavy lifting.

Even if you don't have any shoulder pain, we recommend doing some accessory rotator cuff strengthening a couple days a week to keep the shoulders strong and healthy. Here are a couple of our favorite exercises to do this.

Knee Prop Shoulder External Rotation

Bottoms Up Kettlebell Waiter Walk

These certainly aren't the only exercises that you should do but it is a good start. Additionally focus on your rotational range of motion into internal and external rotation. If you are a barbell athlete, you know the importance of a good external rotation range of motion to improve your front rack position. A sleeper stretch is a good way to improve your internal rotation. Be sure that it feels more like a stretch rather than a pinch in front of your shoulder

If you're not sure what kind of shoulder pain you're experiencing and are having trouble getting back to your workouts at 100%, we're always here to help. You know where to find us!