Upper traps pain due to OHP

[Hash]

Last monday, during a hard (for me) OHP set, due to stronger left side muscles, the bar ended up unbalanced with the left side higher than the right side while pushing up. I kept pushing, till lockout with both arms, and that's when it seems I pulled a muscle in my upper back, I'm guessing the traps, or even a ligament beween the lats/traps? I say the lats because when I tried chin-ups, I was also in pain until I reached the top.

I felt much better today, and re-tried the OHP, but with lower weight, and on my the 5th rep of my 1st set, I felt the sharp pain again, and now they hurt again.

I'm thinking I should avoid exercises that use the traps as one of the muslces for the next week at least, correct?
Squats, deadlifts, dips, and BP seem to be fine. Am I wrong about that? Any exercises I should avoid other than the obvious OHP?

Thanks.

[eLvarouza]

Pretty much everything uses the traps. Do you get the pain if you do a set with perfect form?

[Hash]

Yes, I do. During the OHP, the pain mostly comes during the "get under the bar" part of the lift, even with a broomstick.

[Hash]

Well, looks like this week is gonna be bench press/dips, and perhaps inverted rows week as I also banged up my left knee today and can't put much weight on it right now.

[Hash]

An update on this... a bad one.

It's been 3 weeks since this injury. After the friday reappearance of pain, I stopped for 10 days and with the pain gone, tried the OHP on monday the 24th of August with lower weight. No problem. On Friday the 28th, I upped the weight, and there was no problem.

No workouts on the weekend, but I wake up the monday after with the same pain (31st August). Weird, but I figured the pain would go away. It didn't, but it wasn't strong pain, so I figured i'll try OHP last wednesday. The pain was there when I'm in the unracked position, but was barely there when I'm pushing up. I decided to stop anyways.

Today, Friday, sept 4th, I am walking to the gym with my gym bag on my left shoulder. The pain is still there next to the right shoulder blade, but it's not bad, then suddenly, I get a sharp jolt of almost unbearable pain, and now it hurts like crazy. I can barely move w/o being in pain. I went to a clinic immediately, and the doctor just said quickly take 2 weeks off, and take this anti-inflammatory drug (I think I saw him for 1 min at most).


So i took this anti-inflammatory ~1.5 hours ago, followed by 2 500mg tablets of tylenol, then I iced the area, and there's barely any improvement right now. It even hurts when I breathe.

Did anyone ever get anything similar to this? Any other recommendations? I'll definitely make an OHP video in a couple of weeks for a form check.

The area that hurts is encircle in red in the picture.

[eLvarouza]

Hmm I'd be curious as to whether or not it's actually the press causing the problem. I've gotten various shoulder and upper/mid back pain from holding the bar wrong on squats.

[Hash]

Haven't had the bar on squats cause any pain. First thing I do when I come back to the gym in a couple of weeks is to take my camera with me and take a video of my OHP and maybe a couple of other exercises.

I'm very sedentary right now. My right shoulder has been very tense due to the pain, and unless i'm sitting or lying down, it stays tense to the point it gets annoying and tiresome, and my shoulder actually gets tired. This means not much physical activity.
On the bright side, it's not nearly as painful as it was on the first day. I have a feeling the pain will be gone by the end of the week.

[Hash]

Today the shoulder in the area I encircled keeps cracking on certain movements (Nothing involving weight). Every crack comes with a small jolt of pain. Nothing unbearable, but extremely annoying. Dunno what to do about it right now. I'm going out of the country in 2 days, and I can't get an appointment with a physiotherapist or similar in that delay. I'll just let it rest and then see later.