I have been doing workouts at home for a while now-modified pike pushups, weighted pushups, weighted inverted rows under the table and pull ups, along with pistol squats. I read that one must "unshrug" shoulders (ie, bring shoulders down if you're standing up aka the opposite of shrugging) during pushups and other upper body exercises in order to minimize risk of shoulder injury. To stay on the safer side, I have been unshrugging as hard as I could, but the last week, I felt quite a bit of pain in the traps and upper back area close to the neck after doing weighted pushups that way (first time), and while the pain subsided quite a bit after two days, I tried doing normal un-weighted pushups a few days later and still got pain. Here's a pic of the location of the pain:
I haven't worked out much in the last week for fear of aggravating that pain and just unshrugging my shoulders with moderate force causes pain in that region shown in the above pic.
Personally I think I overdid the "unshrugging" part but so far I haven't been able to find any advice specific to my situation on Youtube or any other place.
I'd really appreciate any advice for correcting my movements on the upper body exercises as well as any corrective exercises to help directly with the pain in that area.
Intrepid_Place53900 2y ago
first, are you sure it's muscle pain, not skeletal?
If just muscle, you did too much, strained them. Take a week off from it, start back up with 1/2 of what you did.
dareealmvp 2y ago
by skeletal do you mean bone pain or tendon pain? I'm pretty sure it's not bone pain, but tendons? I'd say probably yes.
I certainly think I have to stop unshrugging my shoulders with that much force else the problem is only going to repeat.
Intrepid_Place53900 2y ago
bones yes. Tendons, treat same as muscles. Take a week off, try them with 1/2 weight/reps,etc and see how it goes.
Yes, it sounds like you are doing too much, it was first time with that routine so you got to take it a bit easy.
dareealmvp 2y ago
thanks for the advice, do you by any chance know about any corrective exercises for such pain in the traps area?
Intrepid_Place53900 2y ago
corrective? No, Rest is what is needed.
Alternative exercises. I do shrugs with dumbbells and straight bar lifts. works for me and I'm old. I"m sure there's more experienced lifters on the thread that have more options.
MonkMode 2y ago
Rest, work other areas.
Typically with pushup/bench, you tuck your shoulder blades back, almost pinching them together. The pain caused by incorrect form on these is in the shoulder though, not neck.
You'll find tucking the blades back is best for a lot of upper body to free up space in the shoulder.
As for your pain, shit probably overtightened. Are you resting properly between workouts? When I first started I wanted to be jacked instantly (sadly will still get over eager and injure myself). I've dialed back quite a bit adding more cardio and only hitting an area 1-2x a week instead of every day. But I'm 37 with injuries. Younger bodies can handle more.
dareealmvp 2y ago
yes I have seen Allan Thrall's video on bench pressing where he says the same on retracting your shoulder blades, forming an "ass-crack" with your upper back, and in fact that's what I had been doing. However, in my personal experience, retracting shoulder blades works best for bench press and not really the push-up. I used to have pain in my shoulders until I started focusing more on depressing ("unshrugging") shoulders as forcefully as I could instead of retracting them when doing the push-up-which of course wasn't the right move either seeing how it ruined my traps.
Still, just to be sure, I'll try focusing more on retracting my shoulder blades instead of unshrugging my shoulders one more time just to see if my shoulders are still feeling painful after a session, after a week's rest as you guys suggested.
If neither the week's rest works nor focusing on the retraction of shoulder blades, I think I will have to buy dumbbells and start doing dumbbell presses.