25 Sep Tucker:Brachial-perplexed

Brachial-perplexed

The theme over the last few weeks for me has been to figure out what is going on with this nerve pain I’ve had in my left arm/hand for a while now. Since starting this road to recovery in the beginning of the year, I’ve mostly been trying to get the popping in my elbow and knee go away, and even though I had a nerve that would get irritated here and there in my left side, it wasn’t the main concern…. Well lately, it’s been HURTING. I was having to take Advil several times a day just to deal with it, and I was getting really frustrated. My elbow and shoulder on the other side have been steadily improving, but with all the shifting around, my left side was getting a lot of numbness and pain. I was doing my exercises for my rotator cuffs, rhomboids, serratus and lower traps, and although they were getting stronger, while doing the exercises my nerve would light up. I knew my trap on that side was a little over activated, but I had I didn’t realize until I really started paying attention how often during the day I would naturally cinch that side up, and how over activate my traps and scalenes were. It would bunch up on my seemingly no matter what I did…. The solution? Put some tension on my right side and see what happens. My right side has been so weak and unstable for so long, that I had a lot of slack in all the muscles, including the traps. That shoulder was essentially pulling downwards towards the right and in response, my other shoulder was pulling up and onwards to compensate. After doing some trap activation work on the weak side, and just remembering to keep it engaged during the day, within a couple days my left side started to relax and my nerve had less pressure on it. Now, I’m not out of the woods yet, but I’m significantly better than I was just a couple weeks ago pain wise. It’ll still take some time to get everything evened out and for the brachial plexus nerves that were trapped in there to be fully freed up, but with just a small posture change I’m in a lot less pain. I’ve added some light shrugs with an emphasis on bringing my shoulder up and inwards, rather than just straight up like a normal shrug, and that’s been building coordination in the area.

Current workout:

Straight arm pulls from the side for rhomboids

Straight arm pushes for serratus 

Straight arm overhead pulls for lower traps 

Shrugs with shoulder adduction

External rotations for infraspinatis and teres minor

Internal rotations for subscapularis

Mini shoulder raises for supraspinatus 

I’ve been doing this several days a week with my adjusted posture and I’ve been making progress in each workout. 

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Tucker Loken

Tucker Loken is a Bodybuilder turned Powerlifter turned Powerbuilder from Eugene, Oregon. He did his first bodybuilding show when he was still in high school, and has been training male and female competitors for shows since 2011. Several years ago he decided to take a step away from his normal routine and learn how to get strong. He worked with Brian for 9 months, added 200 pounds to his raw total and qualified as an Elite lifter in the 220 pound weight class. He returned back to bodybuilding much stronger and now incorporates the 10/20/Life philosophy into his training to keep himself healthy and making continual progress in the Big 3 as well as adding size and shaping his physique. Now part of Team PRS, he brings his unique expertise of nutritional knowledge and how to balance Bodybuilding with Powerlifting to help athletes achieve their best potential.

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