I am not exactly sure what is wrong with my shoulder, but my excuse for not working out for the past 2 months (resistance) has been my shoulder. After working out consistantly for 3 months I was seeing great improvments in all areas, but my shoulder was getting to the point of not just being "sore" after workouts for a few days, but just hurting all day for a few days at a time. I really want to work out, but due to the no health care issues I can't really go get my shoulder fixed so... What I am wanting to do is try to come up with routines where I only hit my shoulders on one day a week, and the rest of my arms and whatnot the rest of the time. The big problem is most of the chest and back exercises hit the shoulders pretty hard.

So anyway, I guess my question is are there some good, more focused exercises for my chest, arms and back that will minimize my shoulder use?

I have a shoulder problem as well. I went to a doctor and luckily I have no permanent damage. What I discovered through trial and error is that Bench press and dips agrivate my shoulder. It took a couple weeks to finally figure this out.

So here's what I'm doing: I'm concentrating on strengthening my shoulder so I can eventually get into a full workout again. I discovered (again through trial and error) that military press, lateral raises and shrugs don't agrivate my shoulder. So these are the exercises that I'm doing to strengthen it.

So my advice would be to find out specifically what exercises agrivate your shoulder, do other exercises to strengthen it and eventually ease your way back into a full workout.

Other information about my shoulder: Even though I was experiencing "nagging" pain I still had full mobility in my shoulder. This was a good sign. I didn't have any grinding or popping noises either.

I've had some shoulder pain over the past few months.

After doing some research, I discovered part of it was form, part of it was not warming up properly. The form part is easy to fix. Warmup? I now do 5-minutes on the treadmill at 10% incline, then, if an upper body workout is to follow, I warm up the shoulder muscles. Your shoulders are involved in and/or stablilize pretty much every upper body exercise you perform - they need to be healthy. So... remember all those cheesey grade-school warmups you used to do in phys ed? I grab a 5-lb. plate and do a some rotations with the joints, extensions, etc. Then... I start my workout, and even then I start with one warmup set using 10~20-lbs. less weight than I actually require to get a good workout. I was using reduced weight until recently, now I'm at full strength and lifting at capacity again...

My shoulder still aches from time to time as a reminder, and usually only if I'm not careful with form. I'd say it's 99% healed, and health care wasn't involved...


Glucosamine. Get some. At least 750-mg's per day, 1,500-mg's [i](that's the generally recommended dose) since you're trying to repair a joint injury. It works great for me, and has for a friend or two I recommended it to. One avoided surgery using it.

I had a shoulder injury repaired 3 years ago, what happened was it would DISLOCATE all the time, i could wave to someone and *click* out it would go, i eventually learned to put it back in myself (neat party trick)

2 years ago i reinjured it in a dirtbike accident, every so often it feels like theres muscle rubbing on bone, i think its the rotator cuff.

i had been reluctant to start shoulder exercises and i know some that will definetly irritate it, but for the most part i find having one concentrated day of nothing but shoulders actually strengthens the muscle and I only have pain very briefly maybe once every two months. This in turn helps avoid further injury from other unrelated exersices.
I was amazed how much the strength of the back and shoulders helps EVERYTHING else in my regimine.

i probably need surgery again but this is a temporary fix that seems to hold.

I would try to do some basic shoulder strengthening exercises with light weights and slowly move up. I dislocated my shoulder a couple years ago, and it was weak until I did some of these:

External Cable Rotation, Internal Cable Rotation, Front Cable Raise (all of these I read about on shoulder rehab websites)
Cable Rear Lateral Raise (this really helped mine)
Upright Barbell Row

A lot of these can be found here:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/exercises.php?MainMuscle=Shoulders

I've found that working my shoulders in isolation with light but challenging weights on a variety of exercises has really helped strengthen them.

I do seated military presses at the end of my shoulder workout and the isolation ones before. I put a higher priority on strengthening the shoulder overall than how much I can press since the press puts a lot of strain on my injury. It's really helped get rid of any pain, and now my shoulders are stronger than ever.

I'd try doing something like this for 4-6 weeks for your shoulders:
External Cable Rotation (3x10)
Internal Cable Rotation (3x10)
Rear Cable Lateral Raise (3x10)
Upright Barbell Row (3x10)
Front Cable Raise (3x10) - optional since it will be hit by the upright barbell rows some

It seems like a lot, but I use really light weights on most (rear cable lat raises are just up to 20 lbs now). Yet, my shoulders feel solid and better than before. This will get the 3 different heads of the shoulder, and then get the internal ligaments and muscles, too. Move up in weight as you are comfortable and pain free. Dumbbells can be substituted, but the cables feel safer on the shoulder and provide constant tension. I feel like its too easy to swing dumbbells at the light weights.

NOTE: Consult a professional before following this advice, as this is just hearsay.

A buddy of mine at my gym said the he can recently do dips again for the first time since last summer. His shoulder had been hurting him like crazy whenever he did them. The way he fixed this, he says, was strengthening his shoulders by doing diamond-pushups with his hands on a large exercise ball. He'd lean it against a wall/stairs, and go to town. They're hard as hell to do but he said they worked for him.