I hurt my left shoulder about two weeks ago (I was doing arnold presses and after hitting the top and coming back down, my left shoulder lost complete control and went flopping forward, I heard some muscles grind or something.) Since then I haven’t been able to do any uppebody lifts because of it (I had a hard time lifting my arm straight up in the air). It’s healed quite a bit but I can tell it still hasn’t healed completely and I don’t know how long it’ll be…
Anyway, so that put a halt on my lifting. I contemplated on just doing leg days, 4 days a week, but given that I also play basketball twice a week… I decided that would be counter productive (or would it?)
I am in a conundrum… what should I do? Should I just do leg lifts twice a week and let my upperbody heal completely… Should I do legs lifts 4 times a week? I hate this feeling… I swear I am losing all that I worked hard for because I am not lifting as hardcore as I was prior to my injury. Any advice?
I hurt my shoulder earlier this year. I ran into the wall with my right shoulder during a squash game and really damanged that cuff. I couldn’t lift my arm to put my shirt on a few days after and it stopped my workouts completely for a good 2 weeks. After that I looked up a few rotator cuff rehab exercises that I think helped a lot. Everytime I did them the shoulder felt a little better and I was back to benching in another 2 weeks.
I used the lowest possible weights and did some shoulder exercices to help it, like a front lateral raise with a 10 pound barbell, I also used a moderate tempo and did not lift it quickly. I would suggest you try some rehab exercies…worked for me
Injuries are no fun, for sure. Make sure that you see a good doctor. Someone who has had some experience working with injured lifters. Then whatever you do, follow his advice.
Remember that you can always work around an injury to improve other body parts. When I had a knee injury a couple of years ago I focused on my upper body and made some great gains. Gains that would not have come had I not had the injury.
Turn this negative into a positive! Find out what you can train that does not cause pain in that shoulder. Then go for it!
Yeah, that’s what I plan on doing. Originally I was hoping that the pain would reside after a week and then I’d get back on track but it seems like it’ll be some more time before that’ll happen so I am kinda wondering aimlessly.
I think I will just focus on the two core lower body lifts (squats and deadlifts) and do that four times a week. I’ll keep my workouts short now since I’ll be abusing my legs quite a bit (focusing on them during lifting days along with basketball twice a week). I’ll also do some abs etc.
Any advice in terms of how to train my legs? I am guessing/hoping my shoulder will recover in at most two more weeks so in the interim, I’ll periodize using Chad’s latest article’s advice (4 times a week: strength, endurance, hypertrophy, ballistic). We’ll see how that goes.
Mattwray, What type of doctor is yours? Is he a sports trainer? Does he specialize? Maybe you can help me out so that when I do a search for a new doc, I would at least know what area to look in. Thanks.