How to exercise with a shoulder or arm injury

How did the injury happen?

Post Christmas I was clearing out some clothes deciding on what I was likely to wear again and what I wouldn’t. I put on a dress, most of my dresses Ive never undone the zippers and just sip them over the head. This time was different. As I slipped it over any head I realised my bust size had increased somewhat. I brought the dress over my chest and thought, ok that’s not going to fit. As I started to lift it off, I got stuck. In the panic of not wanting to call my older son to come and rescue me from being trapped, I took the drastic decision to “rip it off over my head”. Boy was that a mistake.

Ripping it off in more than one sense of the meaning..

As I ripped off the dress, I felt something “go” in my shoulders and arms. Oh the pain was pretty bad. I knew I’d done something pretty serious. The dress was off, but my arms felt like they’d been ripped out of their sockets!

Injured shoulder and arms prevented me from doing much

As the days went by I realised that my arms and shoulders were pretty damaged. My previous physio had now retired. After a while I decided to try an osteopath and after doing some research I went for a treatment. Id survived using ibuprofen to calm the inflammation. But I don’t like taking medications and avoided only but the essential to eep life flowing.

The ostepath was lovely and soon I was doing a few exercises to help it heal. The worse injury was on the mend for sure and the exercises felt like they were helping. however after a couple of months one still wasn’t right and she asked if I would go and get a scan to see if there was more damage than expected. I booked it in and planned to see the guy in a few weeks as he was pretty booked up. In the meantime I was just walking to get exercise, doing squats and mainly leg exercises to keep going. I had to stop with my personal trainer as most things caused pain, shed already set me some great routines, so I was doing what I could if it didn’t aggravate the injury.

Looking forward to finding out what could be done

I was actually looking forward to the scan, as I felt that knowing what was the matter would be the first step to really getting back to my fitness and improving my health.

there had been a bin strike in the weeks before and I had a huge amount of cardboard recycling ready to go when it will got back to normal. I had flat packed the cardboard boxes and because I couldn’t actually move them anywhere (because of the arm injury I had left them ready to go.

As I walked to the fridge to get some veggies I tripped over the box which had fallen over and to save myself lifted my arm quickly. The pain was searing and I knew yet again that I had done a lot of damage. I turned to go back into the kitchen and tripped on the other side of the box, catching myself on the door frame to stop a fall.

Taking pain relief gave me no relief, I was due to see the osteopath the next day. I messaged her. I couldn’t even touch the skin yet alone have someone touch it for me. The day after was fortunately the day planned for the scan.

Ultra sound scan and passing out

The professor was amazing, he was looking at what had happened. I was in a lot of pain. he tested mobility of the arms and shoulders, I felt like passing out and had to have my feet raised twice during the appointment. He referred me for an MRI and shortly afterwards I contracted covid. So I was completely out of action.

After I tested negative I decided to walk to the shops to get some watermelon, I git half way there and thought I would need to get a taxi back. but having been in that place before I remembered that I had really improved when I slightly pushed myself and my aerobic capacity came back. So I carried on to the shops and walked home, albeit slowly.

the very next day I also had to go for a site meeting for work, it was actually better for me to walk as I would have struggled to drive with my shoulder. So I walked there and back. once again super hard to breathe, but I made myself do it and the next day felt better for it.

I continued to walk as much as I could manage and my breathing got easier and my aerobic health came back somewhat. however, my arms were still pretty much out of action, even carrying a small bag was painful. I couldn’t lift my phone and I couldn’t type!

What exercise I could do whilst my arms and shoulders were out of action

I realised that I would become much less active and fit if I didn’t find some alternatives whilst my arms were recovering, the professor had told me not even to try physio exercises until the MRI results and to rest the arms. Pretty tough when you’re trying to work.

So this is what I came up with:

Exercises that don’t use the arms

I did a lot of leg work, after all the bottom and the legs are pretty large muscles so I felt this would help.

• squats

• walking
• trampoline but only shot times and holding arms crossed
• stepping up the stairs (steps)
• walking up and down the stairs
• wall squats (with and without a stability ball)

• clam shells

• flutter kicks on the sofa/chair kick legs as if swimming

I’m not a personal trainer, just showing you what I am doing whilst my arms and shoulders repair. So if you have an injury or just starting out consult your physician first.

The future

Next week I am going back for the MRI results. I’ve seen them, lots of latin words about my anatomy but tears in muscle, tendon damage, inflammation and more tel me that I may be doing these for a while. Let me know what exercises or activity you do without using arms/shoulders. 🙂