ing shoulders?

[Guest guest]

Hi - I've been doing a 5 day a week Ashtanga

practice for about the last 6 weeks, consisting of Sun

Salutes, all the standing postures, and the

seated/finishing postures per DSwensen's 45 minute short form

practice. (I've done yoga (mostly Bikram style, among

others I've checked out) on and off for over 20 years,

previously studied Ashtanga about 5 years ago using

RFreeman's tape, B3's book, and some wonderful classes at

Tim Miller's, which I plan to start up again

shortly). ANYWAY, lately one of my shoulders has been

clicking pretty loudly (to me) when I rotate it, slightly

forward, then up and back. I wonder whether this is

normal, meaning something is partly loosening up in

there, or whether I've been overly aggressive in parts

of my practice, have been pulling my arm harder,

farther than I should be in some of the asanas. Has

anyone else experienced something like this at some

point? (and no, I've never had any injury in this

area.)<br><br>Thanks for any input...

[Guest guest]

Sorry to reply so late to this. I developed some

really loud clicks in my shoulders at the beginning of

this year. Soon after, my shoulder started to hurt,

first the left, then the right, and worse, probably

because I was overcompensating for the initial left-side

pain. I kept practicing even though it continued to get

worse. Finally I went to my doctor and was prescribed

physical therapy, diagnosed with rotator cuff tendonintis.

I had to attend PT three times a week, three-hour

sessions, and had to stop astanga (although I continued to

do a short practice with a video called Lower Body

Yoga, extremely modified). <br><br>When I reached the

point in rehab that I was lifting weights for and

around my shoulder, I restarted Astanga, but going to my

knees in plank and with other nec. modifcations to

avoid pain. Now I am fully back to it, but if I don't

keep up with the prescribed weight-lifting and other

rehab exercises, I begin to feel pain at the insertion

point. Interestingly, my shoulders no longer

click.<br><br>That's a long, sad story and it does not mean that your

clicking shoulders will lead to an injury. It's just what

happened to me and we are all unique.<br>B