Shoulder injuries and aging flash!

Here's a great example of how information on exercise and aging is not readily available. Perhaps it can also be an example of how this blog can, to some extent, address that problem.

My wife has used the South Beach Diet over the past couple of years with not very good results. I can't say I saw her lose any significant amount of weight using it. But she decided to give it another try after discovering a new book that augments the diet with an exercise regime. It was while perusing this book that I stumbled across a piece of information that may be germane to my recent shoulder problem, but that is certainly crucial information for those intending to exercise in their later years.

In the book, the author (Dr. Arthur Agatston) describes how he took up a sort of cardio-boxing routine, which helped him to discover the virtues of interval training. One exercise his trainer had him do involved lifting a medicine ball overhead and throwing it. He describes how he felt some pain in his shoulder when he did this, though he ignored the pain. The pain increased over the subsequent weeks such that he had to seek a diagnosis and treatment. It turns out that by doing that particular exercise, he had developed a shoulder injury--a rotator cuff tear.

Furthermore, the doctor who diagnosed the problem told him that he always tells patients of Agatston's age to NOT do exercises that involve lifting weight overhead (Agatston was born in 1947, his book came out in 2008, so we could deduce that Agatston was around 60 years old when the doctor gave him that advice). It turns out that, with age, calcium deposits form in the joints causing restricted space for muscles and tendons. This, in turn, leads to greater risk of rotator cuff injury with increasing age. Essentially, the tendons and/or muscles in the affected joints are weaker and subject to tearing more easily under stress (the discussion of the problem Agatston encountered is found on pp 49-50 of his "The South Beach Diet Super Charged")

I read about rotator cuff injuries at the following link: http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/rotatorcuff/a/rotatorcuff.htm . That description does indicate that this sort of injury can be diagnosed as tendinitis--as my shoulder injury was. So, did I really have a rotator cuff injury? I should mention that, although I feel pretty much fully recovered now, I do get a burning sensation in my shoulder while, after exercising, I hold my arm in a certain position. I really do think this age-related restriction of the joint, and thus of tendons and muscles in the joint, may apply to me.

So, where was this information when I needed it? When I told my doctor I planned to start an exercise regime, why did he not warn me about age-related joint restrictions, or about lifting weight over my head? Why didn't the doctors I saw when I went with a shoulder problem point this out? Why didn't the physical therapist who treated me for tendinitis suggest this as a possible problem? Are these medical professionals just as much in the dark as I am when it comes to age and exercise?

Sadly, it seems so. Again, perhaps I can help to offset these inadequacies and shortcomings by making this blog a repository of information on aging and exercise. I'll have to consider now whether I need to stop lifting weight over my head.