Thread: Aching Arms!

One of my troupe mates has fibromyalgia. I knew Snake Arms caused her pain. A few nights ago I learned that the deep pain developed after a long drill at Snake Arms. The pain never left. She never had any symptoms of fibromyalgia before learning Snake Arms.

I think she's doing something wrong, but I'm not sure exactly what. I don't have medical training. I teach, but mostly private lessons and I always say - if it hurts - STOP. Something is wrong.

Unfortunately, her teacher has a very different view, I know because I took some lessons from the same teacher. So I suspect that she was not doing it right, felt discomfort, and ignored it because that's what the teacher told her to do.

Anyway, my question is - what is the right/wrong way to do Snake Arms? I always start with the elbow. My shoulders roll a bit forward, not a lot. Some people start with the wrist & do a straighter-armed version. She is trying to do a shoulders-first, shoulders-forward move.

The pain is on the outside of her upper arm, from shoulder to elbow. Sometimes my shoulders will ache a bit, but I've never had pain there.

Any thoughts??

Sorry, babbled on about rotator cuff tears so I deleted that part.

Naturally you should do snake arms in this sequence: shoulders, elbow, wrist, fingers... and the shoulder should naturally move slightly forward and back, you shouldn't try to keep the shoulders from moving - that's bad, IMO.

Doing snake arms wrong couldn't possibly cause fibromyalgia, and I've never heard of fibrmyalgia being limited to one body part like that.

Has she been to a doctor, or did she diagnose herself? She may need more information.

I agree, I knew a woman who had Fibermyalgia and it was not just located in one part of the body... but it doesn't stop her from dancing - bless her heart. If it affects just her shoulders than its probably due to lack of strength, she should lift light weights (all women should lift weights because it builds bone density too!) to strengthen.

I'd agree with what the others have said as well. My mother has fibromyalgia, and boy would she wish it was just her arms that hurt day in and day out!

Now, it's possible this woman maybe pulled something or arthritis has cropped up, but fibromyalgia is a whole-body thing, and includes more symptoms than just pain.

Doing snake-arms by rolling the shoulders(as described above) can be painful for some people who have injuries with their shoulders, necks, or possibly even upper arms, as there's quite a lot of shoulder-rotation and use of upper-arm muscles going on (esp. if you raise the arms above shoulder height while the shoulder is still rolled forward). Sometimes modifying the snake-arm helps - by only raising the arm as far as shoulder-height, or perhaps not using a shoulder-roll at all.

I think I had a student with fybromyalgia in the past, and though exercise was generally tiring for her, raising her arms (and esp. snake-arms) was definitely the most difficult thing for her to do. She used to dance with her arms by her sides a lot of the time. Unfortunately, after a while, she couldn't keep doing the classes at all. :-(

If your friend's current teacher thinks pain is not wrong, then this sounds like precisely the wrong type of teacher for her as she learns to deal with the limitations of her condition! Perhaps she needs to look for another teacher who will work with her individual needs better.

Sounds like she is not ececuting correctly. Unfortunatly unless an instructor sees and then corrects bad/incorrect movement - it will continue (as becomes committed to muscle memory) It is much more difficult to unlearn a thing than to learn it correctly from the beginning.

No offense to the instructor you mentioned - but she is not only doing a diservice to her student, but possibly creating more harm by requireing the student to continue through the pain. Is it just sore - or true pain? And if your friend does have fibromyalga - the pain from that could also be adding to the mix of the pain from performing move incorrectly...

Your student should seek medical help for this condition. She could have torn something, ie. rotar cuff or pinched a cervical spine nerve or has an ongoing extreme inflammatory response. Only a physican can properly diagnose this.