June 19, 2011

Is there some kind of shoulder pain fairy out there, with a magic shoulder pain wand, inflicting bouts of shoulder pain to the fans and readers of BenGreenfieldFitness?

It would seem so.

First, Fred called in and asked me his question about frustrating shoulder pain, which you can listen to by clicking here.

A couple days later, Mary wrote in and asked:

“I've recently been told I have rotator cuff tendonitis and have a few questions.

1) What causes a person to get this?

2)Is there anything I can do to aid in the healing process? i.e: stretches, exercises, supplements

3) Is there anything I can do prevent this from happening again?”

Then, to make matters worse, I was commuting on my bike four weeks ago, with a big, heavy backpack.

The backpack was jutting out behind my back, full of shoes, gear and clothing, and as I made a sharp turn to my right, the pack caught on a light pole, which subsequently ripped me off my bike and sent me flying into the middle of a busy intersection, where I rammed my shoulder into a minivan and hit the ground…hard.

Credit cards, shoes, my iPhone, my bicycle, and most horrifically, my body, all ended up in a giant yard sale across the pavement. It is probably the closest I have ever come to getting seriously messed up on my bike.

I gathered my senses, gritted my teeth, and slowly stood up as cars came to a screeching halt and curious onlookers peered out of store windows.

For anyone who has ever been in a bicycle accident, you probably know that the first you do is a toe-to-head full-body analysis of how bad the damage to your body is – oh please, don't let anything be seriously broken.

In this case, to my amazement, everything felt fine except my right shoulder, which was throbbing with strange ache that radiated from the back to the front.

I spent the entire next week fretting about my upcoming triathlon, my inability to swim or swing a tennis racquet, and the pain that continued to radiate through my shoulder. And of course, I threw everything and the kitchen sink at rehabilitating my shoulder as quickly as possible, including:

-Infrared therapy, using a handheld device, 10-15 minutes each night.

-Ice three times daily, for 10-15 minutes (bag of frozen corn).

-Electrostimulation for 10 minutes a day (using a Compex device)

-Massage therapy (two 30 minute shoulder sessions)

-Gentle stretching (to retain range-of-motion during the healing period)

-Foam roller (every morning, 2-4 minutes, using this upper back foam roller stretch video)

-Topical magnesium oil (10 sprays rubbed into shoulder every night before bed)

-Liberal use of Phenocane (4-6 per day, spread out as two at a time over two to three dosings)

-Chunky Monkey ice cream (both eaten and smushed into my shoulder with an ice cream cone)

OK, OK, I'm kidding about that last one.

But you get the point – I wanted my shoulder pain to go away fast, and these were all modalities that I could do in my own home, without having to go to the physical therapist. Even though I wasn't able to swim any longer than 150 meters at a time going into my big Half-Ironman triathlon in Hawaii, I still had a great race, and swam the 1.2 mile ocean swim in just 28 minutes. And I was able to play in my tennis tournament a week later.

So my message to you is this:

“Take charge of your injuries, because if you sit around waiting for an injury like shoulder pain to heal, the entire process is going to take much longer and you're going to lose more fitness than if you proactively introduce as many solutions as possible.”

But the story doesn't end there.

Last weekend, injury and shoulder specialist Rick Kaselj sent me an e-mail. He had just finished putting together an all-encompassing solution to shoulder pain, and he wanted me to check it out.

So even though my shoulder pain was just about completely gone, I went ahead and check out Rick's program.

And I got a bit upset.

Frankly, I wished that Rick had his shoulder pain program ready 4 weeks ago, and not last weekend. It would have saved me some serious time and heartache, because it turned out to be the most comprehensive shoulder pain solution I've ever seen in my life. It includes a ton of videos and modules that walk you through shoulder pain solutions like:

-The 8 components you must be doing in order to overcome your shoulder pain…

-The order to do shoulder pain exercises in order to get pain relief…

-Pain techniques you can start now, with out doing any exercises, that will start to melt your shoulder pain away…

-The exercises to DO and NOT do if you have shoulder pain…

-Who should and should not be doing the exercises…

-Essential components of an exercise program when exercising to overcome your shoulder pain…

-Inappropriate stretching that is making your shoulder pain worse…

-The most important movement you need to do in order to overcome your shoulder pain…

-And tons more…

Rick calls it “Shoulder Pain Solved”, and even though I was a bit upset that he hadn't told me about it 4 weeks ago, I promised to let the fans and readers of BenGreenfieldFitness know about Shoulder Pain Solved if he could hook us up with some kind of a discount on it.

To my happiness, Rick agreed, and he's giving all readers of BenGreenfieldFitness a 52% discount on Shoulder Pain Solved for the next 5 days only. Click here to grab it now and beat that shoulder pain fairy forever.