Andrew Schrauben

Another session of PT today and it went pretty well, probably in part because I was one of just two patients being seen by the two PTs, so my work was one-on-one today. My PT was a lot more talkative, although as a result I learned that he just started here in November and used to be a back and neck specialist rather than a sports specialist. Still, he's done a good job so far.

Lots of exercises today, including one where he said "do this to exhaustion". I clarified "you mean until I can't lift the weight anymore?" and he replied yes. After about 50 reps my hand started shaking but I was still getting the weight up and down, so he finally took it away from me, saying "uhh, I think you're done now!" I'll be sore tomorrow.

There was also an exercise where an elastic strap attached to the wall was placed around my shoulder; I then walked forward to put backwards tension on the shoulder joint and then proceeded to raise and lower my arm about 40 times. It was supposed to hold my joint further back in the socket to prevent the clicking whenever I raise and lower the arm, but it didn't work today. Perhaps I need more tension, or maybe I just need stronger muscles that will improve over time.

The PT also worked out yet another knot in my infraspinatus muscle (it attaches to the shoulder blade ridge and runs to the shoulder, under the trapezius). However, the pain in the front of my shoulder he thought was my biceps tendon. I'm not so sure about that since working my biceps has never caused pain, but doing pushups or pullups does cause the front side of my shoulder some pain. The frustrating thing about all of this is that it's gonna take time to see some change since I have to wait for those muscles to develop!