Hello Vickie and other members.
I am new here and wanted some information about the effects of an acromioclavicular separation ( grade 3) on the left shoulder ( right handed player) with regard to any necessary swing changes. Shoulder wobble, increased range of motion or anything like that.
Any info much appreciated.
notknowing,
Probably would be best to give us a little more info. When did the injury occur?? Grade 3 AC separations can be treated conservatively or with surgery---which route did you take? What symptoms do you currently have? That should be enough to get things started. (My background is in family medicine, but I see the ortho guys every day and there is a physical therapy group on the second floor of our building, so I can usually get answers pretty quickly. Then again, Vickie and Physioguy have more knowledge about most of the things discussed in this section than I ever hope to know!) Hope you are feeling well and welcome.
Dr Dave
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------There is no body cavity that can't be reached with a good strong arm and a 14 gauge needle.
Welcome notknowing. DCG is right that more information is necessary to really even start a discussion. I would additionally like to know if you are in pain now, chronic? acute? specific to certain motions or actions? What therapy are you doing now? What kind of golfer are you beyond right handed? Now let's see what we can create.
Thx for the compliment dcg. Physioguy is certainly educated in physical therapy and it is always great to get his input.
Thankyou for the input.
The injury is about 18 months old, and as I was a little late getting to a physician, he told me it would normally have been operated on immediately but as it was after six weeks it was of little consequence if it was operated on after six weeks or six years, as the operation would be the same.
To cut to the chase, he decided not to operate and told me that I would have to change my golf swing. As I only experienced a mild discomfort, certainly not excruciating pain, I left it be.
The problem I have has possibly more to do with the stability of the shoulder during the swing. It seems to move around, or certainly more than the normal add/abbduction. This got me thinking about what the physician said about changing the swing.
I really do not mind looking like Quasimodo but I do not want to play like him.
Sounds to me like you know a lot. I know certain people would criticize you for waiting so long to have your shoulder looked at. I think you were very intuitive with the exception of finding the right movements to help you correct the problem. Either way you are fortunate to only have manageable pain. Type III actually falls into a lesser and more advance diagnosis so I am making a huge assumption that the surgeon identified the lesser evil expects you to manage your condition.
Now to the golf swing. If you are on this site you are already creating the best motions possible. However if your quippy, and likable, joke of looking like Quasimoto is TRUE, you can't possibly not manifest shoulder and potentially hip problems. If you choose to remail out of positive posture you will surely pay a price, not the least of which is changing your golf swing every 'so' often to compensate for a structural system that is slowly degenerating and collapsing on you. Unfortunately we think this is normal or aging and in many golf circles it is considered for the sport. Oh contrare, Mon Ami. Your condition will require much more adaptive monitoring but could be significantly controlled if you are willing to do the work. Clinical studies have indicated that recovery at this level is faster and often more predictable without surgery. Probably depends on the surgeon you talk to.
Concurrent with your curiosity about the shoulder specific exercises (which are necessary and many) I would look at general fitness for your entire frame. Create a positive alignment and you may just find that your shoulder corrects on it's own. After so much time you could have some permanent but not necessarily unmanageable degeneration of the joint which can often be interrupted and retrained to allow you full function. Adhesion and fusion within the joint is often a function of many other lifestyle contributions like nutrition and daily activity.
Now to your question: two of the primary muscles for you to look at are the anterior deltoid (from the clavical) and the trapezious (from the acromium). Please DO NOT do over the head exercises for the conditioning and potentiall forseaable future. My problem in recommending exercises is that I believe those choices are directly effected by the condition of the rest of your physiology. I never just look at a joint as an isolated case. If you have inappropriate posture and we start strengthening your capacity to function 'to' that misalignment, then you are stuck.
Any chance you can get a picture of yourself from the front and one from the side and pm it to me? It would tell me where to start. I went thru most of physical therapy school and literally found it didn't work with my philosophy of systemic condition. I am sure it is frustrating for you now (it is why I do in home training) but would really put us ahead of the game. Only after I found out how I could change the tensions around the problem would I begin to think about my golf swing. I am sure you are making changes that don't hurt you without any input. You sort of have to decide if you want to just change your game or you want to rehabilitate this injury before you create a protocol.
Let me know and I will figure out a way around it if posting pictures is not in your technilogical basket. Do you notice I don't have pictures and have been promising them for months?
Thanks for the extra info and the patience. I am sure we will get a lot of input here. My philosophy is quite different from most medical protocols. You will be able to weigh them all together and find your best solution. I have faith.
Thankyou for your time and effort with the reply Vickie. Words of wisdom indeed.
As I am no spring chicken I knew it would all fall to bits in the end. The physician told me at the time to contact a physiotherapist for rehabilitation. But as in life I thought I knew better, and dug the weights out of the basement.
61 years old, played golf 50 years ( 12 of them off scratch), now off 5.
A relic of 60 s Olympic Lifting. In my modesty I did not think anybody could tell me about moving weights. Six years since I had put them in the basement. The routine was pretty much the same but much lighter, ( Not that stubborn or stupid). Gave the daily ten pints of milk and twenty eggs a miss though. In those days they still had a lift called the clean and press. Which I have been doing religously again. This is obviously agravating the whole thing as it is indeed above the head.
I am going to try and get the pics organised and see if I can find my technological basket.
In the meantime thankyou for your time and effort, it is very much appreciated.
Well, the good news is that you have been a committed and serious athlete which will serve you well as you move back into training. I hope we can explore it further together. Looking forward to some pics. Vickie
Hello Vickie and other members.
I am new here and wanted some information about the effects of an acromioclavicular separation ( grade 3) on the left shoulder ( right handed player) with regard to any necessary swing changes. Shoulder wobble, increased range of motion or anything like that.
Any info much appreciated.
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It sounds like the medically trained forum members have given you some good information.
As far as golf swing information... Jerry Pate, and I'm pretty sure (Greg Norman) are both examples of players that developed shoulder problems. They have changed their once fairly upright arm swings to swings that have much less vertical lift of the arms.
I know Jerry Pate has had several shoulder operations. He changed his swing, but is now playing very well again.
Maybe some others on the forum also have some information about this subject.
Lagster, I'm so glad you offered these ideas. I agree that there must be some other's who've experienced these shoulder issues. I would love to hear of the various protocols they've used. For my part, changing your swing is definitely a way of addressing the issues. I tend to want to look a step backwards and find out the origin of the problem and correct from there. It really is the other side of the same coin and I think looking at both sides of the equation are very important. (Aren't I just the cliche queen!)
You have sent me off to do some research. Thanks for offering specific, visible pro's that we can look at.
Many thanks to Vickie Lake for her Fit For G.O.L.F presentation this morning to the Three G.O.L.F. Guys and You Workshop. A great job! And the good news is ...
It's all on video, and we'll be posting it in the near future!
Hybrid Mode
