Bridge shoulder hurting

[horriefic]

I've been playing/practicing a lot more snooker these last 3 weeks. Sometimes 4-5 hours at a time. My bridge shoulder has started to hurt (I'm right hander, so it's my left shoulder that hurts). The pain is felt when I lift up my left hand above my head (similar position when in cueing position). When I go down to cue and stretch out my left hand, it hurts a bit, and I kinda just put less pressure on it to relieve the pain so that I can continue to play.

Question - Is this normal (due to the sudden increase in playing time), or something that I am doing wrong? Anybody had similar pain before?

Thanks!

[Sidd]

Dear Horriefic,

While playing more exerts exhaustion and might induce bodily pains here and there and for that matter a little exercise is required just to keep the body relaxed, however, what you are experiencing is not normal and should not happen with increase in play. I can tell you all of this with confidence given that I have had this particular pain for a long time to an extent that I could not sleep on my right shoulder (I am a lefty). This is called Shoulder Tendinitis and if you search on this forum for bridge arm pain or tendinitis etc you will find many of my previous threads/posts about the said problem.

Though I am not fully cured and still have the pain but its not that bad and not as regular as before. I have been playing 4-5 hours non-stop at least 5 days a week for the last year or two and even before the routine was 4-5 hours at least thrice a week. first I thought its due to the age factor and I am not young anymore (36 years old now) but then I figured out it wasnt like that. The professionals practice 6-8 hours a day for 6 days a week at times yet they carry on without any pain.

I will tell you what it is why its caused and how to cure it... so relax mate

In the world of sports it is something called Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and occurs when a particular muscle or joint is exposed to wrong pressure or angle over and over again. The shoulder is attached through tendons and overly exerting wrong angle pressure causes inflammation/injury in the tendons; hence called tendinitis. I do not know how severe is yours. If you can not lift your arm above your shoulder AT ALL due to SEVERE and SHARP pain then its pretty serious. If its a dull pain then its the begining only and not severe. Can you sleep on your bridge arm shoulder at night? Mine used to cause me pains and I could not sleep at night. Yes, I have had sleepless painful nights for my love of snooker

Let me first tell you about treatment and then we will discuss about the cure.

TREATMENT

You can consider the following:

1. Rest. The tendon that has the inflammation can be soothed back to normal with rest and without putting it in similar position that caused the pain in the first place.

2. You can take iBruphen or any good painkillers. But for this purpose you must consider to go to a physiotherapist or a general practitioner first. The best thing is to take them with milk as milk helps strengthening fibres and tissues and hence tendons.

3. Go to internet and find out about simple exercises for RSI and Tendinitis. Do them as described. That really helps a lot.

4. Now dont be afraid when I say this, I was afraid when I saw that... last option is a tendinitis surgery but that is only for severe and worse cases. If I cured mine with self help; yours is in a much better condition.


CURE

Now when you see other players play for hours and days without pain it makes you think its not playing more its playing wrong. First things first: Check out body weight distribution: There should not be much weight put on to bridge arm in the first place. Is your bridge arm arm-pit above the table ??? Do you only keep forearm on the table and your upper arm is pretty high ? If yes then immediately take your left arm-pit lower. Do you keep your bridge FIRM as insanely firm or just firm on the cloth? Sometimes stiff finger pads can cause stiffness in the arm leading to the shoulder. Relax that bridge hand. havent you noticed quite a number of pros have their second finger in a curve and not straight on to the cloth. That is done to release that extra pressure. OK last but not the least and this is from where my problem came in I guess... Are you too forward in to the shot? I was too forward in the shot so imagine if you are too forward in your stance you are putting more weight on the left side of your body and hence the left shoulder has to take the pain in order to keep you still. If this is the case you can do what I did: Watch Ken Doherty how he makes his stance ... his straight leg is actually behind vertical I tried for days and got something like that... I now keep my straight leg back of the vertical and this causes me not to be too much forward in the shot and I have more cue to look at while in the address position.

I cured mine in the following manner:

1. No rest (sorry bad thing) but I cant afford not to play snooker. Pain to me was better than suffocation
2. iBruphen with milk twice a day after meals.
3. Exercise (most important) though there are many I only did one i.e. sit down and hang your left arm straight down to the floor vertically. Hold some weight in the hand (3 kgs maybe) then move your hand to extreme right and then extreme left (as comfortably as you can) repeat this to and for motion 15 times then rest repeat this five times. Remember that you should not only move the wrist but the whole arm upto the shoulder shall move to the right and left.
4. Change in stance (if you are forward in to the shot- I personally suspect that will be the case) keep straight leg behind vertical in the address position and you will feel the difference in a couple of days only.

It took me painful days and nights for weeks and weeks to find the cure. Terry helped me a lot and I emailed Nic Barrow on this and he was kind enough to reply. I hope this helps you mate !

[j6uk]

You could be off balance, not using the legs and may have to much weight over your bridge arm and/or the bridge hand is white and tense.
Have you ever had coaching?

[horriefic]

Thanks for the detailed reply Sidd. I really appreciate it. Yes, I am intentionally leaning forward more recently. I used to lean back, but was told to lean forward more and put a bit more pressure on my bridge hand! I will have to adjust my stance now accordingly. I am also not 'young' at 38 years old!

j6uk, I have just started taking some snooker lessons from a local Malaysian pro. Started playing s ooker when I was like 18 and always just dabbled in it, but never really played it well. High break of 30+, and scoring 20+ in a frame is infrequent. So I told myself I might as well give it a good fo and improve to enjoy the game, or just burn the cue and gibe up! I say that to myself all the time when I miss easy pots. Anyway, I see some improvements over the last few weeks and hopefully there is a turning point in my game. My first target is to make 50+ break. And be able to clear 4 reds and blacks in line up consistently. Now its like once every 8 tries or so!

Wong

[Terry Davidson]

horreific:

Since the straight bridge arm theory of Joe Davis the modern coaches advocate a slight bend in the bridge arm with around 10% of the weight loaded on the bridge forearm and bridge hand (if you put the weight on just the bridge hand you will tend to push down on it and this might introduce tendonitis). Try and make some adjustments which don't change your set-up too much as you should never introduce discomfort into your set-up.

Terry

[horriefic]

Noted, and thanks Terry. I'm already putting less pressure on my bridge arm naturally so that I don't feel the pain when cueing.

Sidd - forgot to mention earlier that the pain is there, but not so bad until I can't sleep on my side (on my left shoulder) to sleep.

[itsnoteasy]

I wouldnt take ibuprofen for any length of time, as with asprin, diclophenic, naproxen they are all nsaid, and not good for you, if you take anything long term take paracetamol , much much safer.
Almost certainly your problem is what J6 says.

[DeanH]

Bridge shoulder hurting

all these drugs have detrimental effects to organs of the body so please do not use them long term.
as has been said your stance is out off kilter a tad so get that sorted and you should be good
all the best

[alabadi]

i have suffered with pain in both shoulders for years due to bodybuilding , i still go to the gym but have toned down a lot since i got these injuries.

around 3 months ago the pain in my left shoulder increased, i am a right handed player and went to my GP who referred me to a physio. we found out that my front shoulder muscles were not as strong as the rear ones and therefore was causing and imbalance, i was given exercises to do to strengthen the rotator cuff muscles in my shoulder and i am getting better all the time.

simple stretching of the shoulder 3 times a day using a rubber band has reduced the pain quite a lot.

i also found that leaning into the shot too much aggravates the injury so i have adjusted my stance to take less weight off my bridge shoulder

[horriefic]

Thanks for sharing Alabadi.

i have suffered with pain in both shoulders for years due to bodybuilding , i still go to the gym but have toned down a lot since i got these injuries.

around 3 months ago the pain in my left shoulder increased, i am a right handed player and went to my GP who referred me to a physio. we found out that my front shoulder muscles were not as strong as the rear ones and therefore was causing and imbalance, i was given exercises to do to strengthen the rotator cuff muscles in my shoulder and i am getting better all the time.

simple stretching of the shoulder 3 times a day using a rubber band has reduced the pain quite a lot.

i also found that leaning into the shot too much aggravates the injury so i have adjusted my stance to take less weight off my bridge shoulder

[Sidd]

Noted, and thanks Terry. I'm already putting less pressure on my bridge arm naturally so that I don't feel the pain when cueing.

Sidd - forgot to mention earlier that the pain is there, but not so bad until I can't sleep on my side (on my left shoulder) to sleep.

Relax my friend. You have caught it before it got worse. Just do the little exercise I mentioned. A couple of painkillers with milk are no harm. As Terry mentioned not more than 10% weight on bridge arm lean back a bit ... thats it !

[hotpot]

Sound like an injury or strain , i used to do a lot of bodybuilding and the shoulder is the most common and easiest to injure , i used to get pain like you describe quite often , do you think you may have strained it in any way .

[rightoncue89]

Bridge shoulder hurting

i get this same pain after playing for a while, say 5 hours, but not always, i think it tends to happen when i get lazy in my set up and out too much weight on my bridge hand causing strain on my shoulder, after reading this thread i will definately try to set up better and see if it helps with the pain

[Chu]

Some good tips here, I had this issue for a long time.
And I'm still in my young years