I'm a right handed badminton player and have been playing for over 10 years and have developed a shoulder weakness or problem. I've noticed I struggle to do push-ups, and when standing outside my car and leaning over to a far seat to pick up something, if I put weight on my right shoulder it is very uncomfortable and I can't hold that pose really. Since I was young i've been able to slightly dislocate either shoulder when I move them in a certain direction after another. Bend hand towards chest and push shoulder away and up a bit. I was preparing for a big smash one game and setting my right shoulder back in the classic pose, I didn't realise it was probably not in the best position and when I threw the elbow and hand forward for the shot... incredible pain followed. I was probably in shock and could only grip the racquet with about 15% strength for a good 5 minutes. It also started clicking a bit when I would rotate it if I did small windmills or slow rotations on the other axis. So I saw a physio. She noted that my right shoulder sits lower than my left shoulder when I am at rest. I didn't even notice it before, but it is very noticable. It's 1-3cm lower on the right side. No idea if it's from badminton or not. She gave me exercises to do, I did some of them but found myself questioning their effectiveness, if they were doing anything and if I was doing them incorrectly. So I stopped doing them after a week or so. The exercises were wall angel (back against wall, then do a snow angel, but with palms and back flat to the wall. This one is difficult for me to do. Another exercise was putting both elbows on the waist and moving hands to the side then forwards. Again this one is a struggle. The pain went down a bit, but every now and again I would try too hard in a smash and feel shoulder pain afterwards. Not as bad as when it happened the first time, but I am subconsciously holding back now, for fear of pain. It got a bit worse and I saw badminton insight's youtube video with 7 shoulder exercises to do. So I bought a set of resistance bands and did exercises numbers 1-4 every other day for a week and the pain has gone down to where it is manageable. But I still can't do push ups or lean in across car and put weight on it. I couldn't manage the final advanced exercise in the video either. Should I be stricter with the exercises and actually bother to do them? Say for 1-6 months? Should I see a different physio? I can see this being a problem in future and I have started to get a small amount of tennis elbow in the same arm. Not sure if linked. As for which racquet(s) I am using, I noticed the tennis elbow pains started after I swapped from using a nanoray 800 racquet to using a Nanoflare 800 racquet. The nanoflare is a G5 size and the nanoray is a G4 size. Can't remember weights. I don't use the nanoflare for more than an hour a week now. If I switch from the Nanoray 800 to my Astrox 100zz because I want to try and get better at smashing or play some singles games, I get shoulder pain if using for two days in a row (2hrs and 2hrs). The Astrox is G4 grip size, again not sure about weight. Thanks in advance
If an exercise is difficult for you, but other people seem to have no trouble with it, that's probably an exercise that will be effective at strengthening whatever is unusually weak. If an exercise actually helped lessen the pain, that's probably an exercise that works, and if you take it further you will likely get rid of the pain entirely. What might another physio tell you that you don't already know? Either some muscles are weak, or some ligaments are weak and loose, which makes the joint unstable, which causes the damage when you overdo it, and even when the damage heals, you still have the unstable joint ready to cause problems the next time. The way to stabilise the joint is to make it stronger.
A week of doing physiotherapy exercises is nothing. Three to four months is more reasonable. If you see a doctor, they are going to recommend the physio first, the after a few months, if symptoms persist, refer you for an MRI and an orthopaedic consult. If you have a good go at doing the physio, it will speed everything else up down the line if you need to investigate more.
What Cheung said. I'd stay off strenuous exercises and start with what the physio advises first and work up from there. One injury can lead to the next and next thing you know, you're having difficulties in general. Better to take a few months break and build back your strength slowly so you can play long term instead of trying to play even not as strenuously and end up injuring yourself long term and not being able to play anymore. I won't go into details about how I didn't do my rehab physio property and have issues now. And also how I didn't rest my injury enough and end up breaking something else that requires surgery that required that rehab. But as I grow older, I listen to my body more and really rest it now so I can hopefully maintain playing long term.
Stick with the exercises. As someone with back problems, I can tell you that the exercises are meant to be done consistently over a longer amount of time before they show real improvement. It's for your own safety; more intensive and heavier exercises might show quicker results but they greatly increase the risk of serious injury. As far as I know, the only super-quick solution would be steroids, which should be discussed with and administered by a medical professional.
Just a note about RAD-140/Testolone: It's not currently approved for human consumption and is considered a banned substance by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency), meaning you will be disqualified in officially sanctioned amateur and professional sporting events if it's found in your system. Use at your own risk.
