Question
hello! I'm a level nine gymnast and I'm having really serious soreness/pain. I looked up the area and I think it's my Teres Major. I did a really intense crossfit workout three days ago, and now I am unable to lift my arms above my head, sideways, and backwards. Thinking it was only some soreness from the irregularly intense workout, I tried to do a normal workout at the gym and my arms wouldn't support me along with the extremely uncomfortable stiffness/pain that came along with it. My mom is convinced it's me overreacting, but I've never felt this type of soreness before in my life. These last nights I couldn't sleep as well because laying down in certain positions caused pain. I wanted to check with a professional before asking my mom to see a doctor. thanks for your time!

Eagerly awaiting your reply,
Elizabeth

Answer
Hello Elizabeth,

Sorry to hear about your shoulder.  The good news is that I do think there is a good chance you may be able to fix yourself, or have someone else fix you quite rapidly.

I'm going to send you do my completely free Do-It-Yourself-Joint-Pain-Relief website,
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/
The website has free follow-along videos with joint pain relief techniques for every joint in the body.
The Shoulder Joint Pain Relief page,
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/shoulder-joint-pain-relief.html
is the one I'm going to recommend you visit and do the follow-along videos.


If you take a moment and think of all the muscles in your body like the rigging (ropes) on a big old-fashioned sailboat, you can begin to understand that all the tension in all the muscles must balance off each other for us to stand, sit, walk, run, etc. in the way our body is designed to do so. If the muscles in your shoulder girdle are imbalanced it could be causing your pain.

From your description I think you are correct in that your Teres Major is probably very tight, but your trees minor, subscapularus, and your serratus anterior (very important!) are also probably tight, along with other muscles. You can release a lot of them yourself as you watch the videos or have a friend do some of the techniques on you.

The techniques I show you will only help, they won't make things worse.  If you have badly torn a tendon then the techniques will give only temporary relief or no relief at all.  

I'm in San Diego and you can contact me through my website if you desire.

All the best,

Gary