Wednesday's are generally my back days at the gym. I did my workout as per usual, and felt nothing out of the ordinary. That evening though, I was playing football and I felt this sudden sharp in my back. It's on the left side, just on the inside of the shoulder blade. It was almost unbearable at first, and a massage relieved some of the pain a little. However a few days on, it's still causing problems. It's kind of spread to my shoulders now. I'm wondering what it is and how to solve it. I would go see a physio, but the process is generally quite a long and arduous one and we could be waiting 30 days before going. I'm hoping and praying it's not a joint problem, and rather just a muscular one. Has anybody experienced any back pain like this before? I can't turn my head to the left beyond my shoulder, whereas on the other side I can do it further. Bending my head forward onto my chest feels like the muscles in my back are stretching and it's the same for when I tilt my head back except it's a bit more painful. Can anybody perhaps provide me with some advice? I'm wondering whether it is just an overuse injury. I know generally people exaggerate how bad an injury is and I'm hoping that's the case.
Unlucky man :/ let me guess.. everything was perfect in life, in football, and then bam! - another setback - story of my life right there haha. Sounds muscular, but I'm not at all qualified to diagnose anything, especially over the internet. But a sudden pain, and a feeling of tightness wil almost always suggest a tweak, pull, or rupture. I'm guessing you've done one of the first two. Ice it, it can't hurt, you could just lay on an icepack with the pack between your back and the bed, easiest place to ice. Physios and doctors are the worst! you wait a couple of weeks to get the appointment, and then you sit there for an hour in the waiting room.
Yeah. It was starting to feel a little easier last night.. I went to sleep, woke up this morning and it was terribly stiff. It eased off slightly when I went on my run. But thinking I might need to just use one pillow for a little while. So frustrating as I was just starting to make some strength gains and now I'm probably gonna have to start again. I probably pushed myself a bit too much.
By shoulder blade do you mean Scapular? If so it could be a rotator cuff. If you have difficulty with shoulder rotation and have shoulder pain that might be it. It could be your Subscapularis, this rotates the shoulder and arm forward and across the body. This is the muscle: It could also be your rhombus muscles which are here: The rhomboids help with scapular retraction (pulling them back towards the spine, like the top movement of a barbell row). It may also be the trapezius muscle, which also acts of the shoulder, here it is: It could be one of these, I'm unsure. I'm in first year Sports Science and going off what I've learnt so far. But one of these could be the muscles you've injured. Do you use machines alot at the gym? Hope some of this helped, In my opinion a trained health professional is your best bet towards recovery!
Gone to the Doctors and got some good news. It seems to be a muscle strain in my back so I'm thrilled about that. It'll take a further 1-2 weeks for it to heal and then I can start strengthening it again. Thanks for the help Vaporism, you were pretty much right. Strained trapezius.