My Right Shoulder

[Renegade]

I assume you are referring to the military press. These are very hard on the rotator cuffs, which is probably making the clicking/grinding sound. I like these exercises myself, but am very careful b/c they are one of the riskiest exercises out there as far as causing an injury.

It is very important to not overload the weights here - it is NOT the exercise to try to show off on! My father, who was very strong at these, screwed up his rotator cuff doing them and had to have surgery at a young age (twenty-something). Not only can he not perform these exercises at all anymore, it has affected his ability to bench press as much, etc.

I learned from his mistake, so I hope you can take this one a step further and learn from my advice.

Edit: One other thing. If you are actually hearing noises/feeling any discomfort, give it a break for a while and resume with the aforementioned caution.

 

[bubka]

crepitus

 

[CCS]

my elbow used to click when I did curls and lifted them to my shoulders. Not any more though. It was over a year ago. It just went away without me noticing. Just remembered now when you wrote this.

 

[The Gardener]

I have the same thing on my right shoulder, had it all my life. My chiropractor said it might be either just a genetic weakness in my shoulder, or it might be some sort of a minor injury I might have incurred when I was younger.

Regardless, he recommended that I do some exercises to keep the area strong. He recommended that I take some very light weights (5 or 10 lbs), hold one weight in each hand, and with my arms extended outward to the side, do arm circles. I do the circles both backwards and forewards, I'll do a few tight circles, then widen them up and do some wider circles. DON'T use a lot of weight, the point is not to strain the area or build muscle, but rather to apply some gentle resistance just to keep the rotator muscles toned and tight.

It seems to do the trick... then again, it seems I only feel the clicking when I've been lazy and I'm not strong. When I am in my groove with regular exercise, the problem doesn't seem to appear.

 

[Aplunk1]

It's okay... you guys are just getting old.

 

[CCS]

I have the same thing on my right shoulder, had it all my life. My chiropractor said it might be either just a genetic weakness in my shoulder, or it might be some sort of a minor injury I might have incurred when I was younger.

Regardless, he recommended that I do some exercises to keep the area strong. He recommended that I take some very light weights (5 or 10 lbs), hold one weight in each hand, and with my arms extended outward to the side, do arm circles. I do the circles both backwards and forewards, I'll do a few tight circles, then widen them up and do some wider circles. DON'T use a lot of weight, the point is not to strain the area or build muscle, but rather to apply some gentle resistance just to keep the rotator muscles toned and tight.

It seems to do the trick... then again, it seems I only feel the clicking when I've been lazy and I'm not strong. When I am in my groove with regular exercise, the problem doesn't seem to appear.

great post. I exercise my rotator cuffs by holding my elbows out to the side with my upper arms parallel to the ground, and my forearms out to the front at 90 degrees to my upper arm. I then raise and lower my hand with 5 pound weights. It works the rotator cuffs, and also the shoulders since they have to hold my arms up. I can also work the opposite cuffs by doint this lying down


Never do fast, forceful exercises, unless you know what you are doing. Bad when improvising.

 

[hair today gone tomorrow]

best excercise for rotator cuffs: cuban rotations


btw, Military presses and push-presses are FINE for your shoulders...as long as you dont do them behind your head. Few people have the shoulder flexibilty to do behind the head shoulder presses.

 

[The Gardener]

Hard to explain that question. Yes, there is some residual "clicking", but there is an internal feeling of strength, and a lack of that "signal" from your body that something is wrong.

Never do fast, forceful exercises, unless you know what you are doing. Bad when improvising.

Right on the money. These exercises are all about modest resistance done persistently.

 

[Harie]

Stretch your shoulders out, plus read the article below. Exercises to do are listed at the bottom of the article.

http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do? ... 80rotator2

As a side note - if you're going to do cuban press, use dumbbells. The lower portion of the cuban press is an upright row...Which is hell on your shoulders by it's self if not done with DB's.

Shoulder stretch video. I use a towel myself instead of a broomstick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifxxbWwzKio

 

[bubka]

the clicking is crepitus, everyone has it someplace, it means nothing

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I also had something similar, but it happened when I did dips.
I kept working through it, and little by little, over time, the clicking went away.. so in my case it was just a matter of getting strong enough to overcome it.

BTW, you know those 'walkers' that old people use to help them walk? You can buy them usually at a garage sale for about a buck.
They are amazing as workout apparatus.

YOu can take the wheels off and use it as parallel bars for doing dips, also for doing push ups and pull ups.

I like working out using my body-weight, rather than weights, like gymnasts do.