You’re a healthy, fit person now and you enjoy being active. As you up your efforts at the gym, there’s more potential for injury. The occasional twist or pull is to be expected. A lot of guys will try to play off the injury, “push through it” and not get proper treatment. That can cause greater harm and permanent damage that can take you out of the gym for a long time; setting you back in your weight loss maintenance. If you do get injured, get treated as soon as possible.

Below is an entry I made in a personal blog a few years back. I’m reposting it here because it contains information that some might find helpful.

Apparently, a human shoulder is engineered to only provide so much force over a period of time. Like a lot of guys, I stupidly exceeded this limit. To literally add insult to injury, I ignored the pain thinking I’d “tough it out” and that it would get better over time. It didn’t.

After months of pain and watching the quality of my workout steadily decline, I went to my primary care physician. He did a few tests and told me there was something wrong with my shoulder and sent me to Grayhawk Family Chiropractic for evaluation and treatment.

During my first visit, Dr. Frank Sorrentino (he prefers to be called Dr. Frank) performed a series of movements with my shoulder that I would later learn is called Active Release Technique or ART. These seemingly gently movements actually did a lot to improve my flexibility and range of motion. He next pulled out this metal rod and started scraping the tissue around my shoulder. Yes, it felt like this sounds. This is referred to as the Graston Technique. My simple understanding of this is that a lot of pain and range-of-motion limitation is caused by scar tissue or improperly healed injuries. The only way to get the tissue to heal correctly is to break it back down. While this hurts like a son-of-a-gun while it’s being performed, I can tell you there is a payoff later. Treatment ended with 20 minutes of electrical muscle stimulation. Dr. Frank gave me a few exercises to perform throughout the day at home and I was done.

This series of treatments continued over the course of eight weeks. Dr. Frank closely monitored my progress and was attentive to my feedback. You could tell he genuinely cared. As time progressed, we slowly added more activities and eventually got to the point where I could go back to the gym. After working out for a few weeks, Dr. Frank sat with me and reviewed my workouts line-by-line and gave me feedback as to what was going well and where I maybe needed to be more careful. I have to say, no other doctor has given me this kind of personal attention! I also need to note that during the whole time of my treatment, Dr. Frank was always upbeat. Anyone that knows me well understands that I appreciate a sense of humor and I usually left Dr. Frank’s office laughing my a** off- even when I wasn’t feeling great.

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