The pain in the groin of the right leg is getting better, while a new pain has appeared in the left shoulder. It is typical frozen shoulder pain caused by adhesions and stiffening of the shoulder muscles, joint capsule and other soft tissues. As for treatment, the doctor gives me a shot of a steroid called triamcinolone acetonide in my shoulder once a month.
Fortunately, the pain is only felt when raising my arm above the shoulder, so the pain does not directly affect running. I thought that I was immune to the frozen shoulder condition (shoulder periarthritis) I do yoga regularly and stimulate my joints and muscle mobility.
Off the top of my head, massaging the armpits and shoulder is the first thing that comes to mind. I naturally do these basic massages properly, but aside from that, I have thought about the causes of soreness. The pain appeared first in the right leg and then in the left arm, which means that the pain crosses the body diagonally. This implies that I do not twist my body properly. When it relates to the shoulder area, shoulder blades first come to mind, but when I looked into it more, considering the twisting, I came to the conclusion that a tight thoracic spine was causing it. To be precise, I have already learned the importance of the thoracic spine through yoga, but I could not connect with my pain and the movement of the thoracic spine.
The thoracic spine is a spine between the scapulas and helps keep the body upright. I watched Youtube videos on stretching the thoracic spine to understand the treatment, but it was surprisingly difficult to stretch the targeted area. With the scapula, I just put my hands on my shoulders and rotate my elbows in a circular motion, with the thoracic spine, it is challenging to try to twist my body without doing it step by step, so I first do the stretch and curl of the spine by the yoga pose ‘Cat-Cow’, and then I try twisting as the next step.
From a running point of view, if the upper body is not twisted properly, the arm swing is not smooth and the movement to rotate the pelvis is poor. This results in a strain on the leg and loss of flexibility. Which comes first, the shoulders or the legs, though? Anyway, I hope that if the thoracic spine becomes softer and the shoulder and leg movements work well together, my condition will improve.