Come Sunday I found my left shoulder absolutely blown up. I couldn't use it at all. If my elbow moved away from my body I'd instantly wince in pain. Putting on a shirt became a three minute affair of acrobatic hunching and torso-shimmying, avoiding raising my left arm in any way. I threw down four ibuprofen and glued my arm to my side for the day. Today was slightly better, and four more ibuprofen before work helped get the swelling & pain down to manageable levels by midday. I still can't raise my left arm above shoulder height, and lifting any weight at all with it is impossible. So the workout today took to task my apparently much more recovered hip, as I jumped my RPMs and resistance up again on the cycle, did 4x20 calf raises, and added a ten pound weight with rotation to my lunges.
Post workout I ran into the trainer who's been helping me and I explained how I'd traded one messed up joint for another. He twisted my arm around a bit and concluded confidently that I've got a shoulder impingement, thankfully not a rotator cuff tear. Impingement apparently means, based on the five minutes of interneting I've just done (the description here is exactly what I feel), is that the rotator cuff muscles aren't strong enough and are letting the tendon slip down to get pinched between the clavicle and humerus. The cure is basically rest, ice/heat combos, and ibuprofen. Problem is, it seems to take several months to successfully rid oneself of the inflammation that results from the tendon slipping. I can lay off the bench/pull-ups/pull-downs, but how will this affect my goal? I need to have my hands extended above my head, obviously - will this slow me down? Or can I focus exclusively on jumping for now?
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