Quick question: My ortho says I can do Isometrics for the next 3 weeks while I’m in a sling. I feel my pec, front delts, mid delts, rear delts, rhomboids, mid traps and even lats working on the basic exercises he has given me. If I bust my ass on these do you guys think I can prevent atrophy? Personal experience with this a +
Thanks in advanced for your help.
I’m just a doctoral student studying physical therapy, no expert, but heres some input on your question. It depends on your muscle mass level before you got into the sling. If you’ve got some good mass on you, your going to experience some more atrophy than a smaller guy because your muscles will clearly be worked less with isometrics in a sling than by lifting weights. Since you said you are only going to be in it for 3 weeks, don’t worry too much about atrophy, it takes some time to set in, but for sure the isometrics will cause you to atrophy much less than if you did nothing.
I also speak from experience because last summer I had a shoulder athroscopy and was in a sling for 3 weeks and my delts and trapezius on that side did noticably get smaller. But dont worry, when you get back to the iron game they will start catching up quick.
About five years ago I gave myself a three month break from the gym. I didn’t do this out of laziness believe it or not, but at the time I was convinced I was severely overtrained. In retrospect it was a waste of time.
I didn’t notice any atrophy until about week five. There could have been strength loss before then but I had no way of knowing since I wasn’t working out.
But everything I had lost in that time was back in about three weeks after resuming training. Damn was I ever sore too!
3 weeks is nothing. you’ll bounce back in 2.
i say let your arm get a gooooood rest so it feels properly and quickly without further comnplications
[quote]DaBeard wrote:
I’m just a doctoral student studying physical therapy, no expert, but heres some input on your question. It depends on your muscle mass level before you got into the sling. If you’ve got some good mass on you, your going to experience some more atrophy than a smaller guy because your muscles will clearly be worked less with isometrics in a sling than by lifting weights. Since you said you are only going to be in it for 3 weeks, don’t worry too much about atrophy, it takes some time to set in, but for sure the isometrics will cause you to atrophy much less than if you did nothing.
I also speak from experience because last summer I had a shoulder athroscopy and was in a sling for 3 weeks and my delts and trapezius on that side did noticably get smaller. But dont worry, when you get back to the iron game they will start catching up quick. [/quote]
Excellent. Thanks a lot DaBeard. I’ll actually be in a sling for a total of four weeks, as I couldn’t even see my ortho until a week after it happened. It will be interesting to see how fast I bounce back. I have more muscle than the average person but am not huge.
I could bench with the 110 DB’s for five, DL about 395, and never really tested my squat. I weighed 192 before this happened. I think I’ll take some pictures of me after three weeks and see how fast I can get it back. Thanks again for your response.
[quote]MytchBucanan wrote:
About five years ago I gave myself a three month break from the gym. I didn’t do this out of laziness believe it or not, but at the time I was convinced I was severely overtrained. In retrospect it was a waste of time.
I didn’t notice any atrophy until about week five. There could have been strength loss before then but I had no way of knowing since I wasn’t working out.
But everything I had lost in that time was back in about three weeks after resuming training. Damn was I ever sore too![/quote]
Damn, three months off because you thought you overtrained?? It’s funny you say that because it is a strage feeling getting back to the gymn and feeling that deep soreness the following couple of days. I know I won’t be “back in the gymn” once I get this sling off. My ortho probably won’t even let me get back into hitting the iron for 6 - 7 weeks.
Thanks for your feedback
[quote]ZeusNathan wrote:
3 weeks is nothing. you’ll bounce back in 2.
i say let your arm get a gooooood rest so it feels properly and quickly without further comnplications[/quote]
I dunno. I think being completely immobile vs just not lifting weights might be a big difference. We will see. Thanks for the reply.
[quote]DaBeard wrote:
I’m just a doctoral student studying physical therapy, no expert, but heres some input on your question. It depends on your muscle mass level before you got into the sling. If you’ve got some good mass on you, your going to experience some more atrophy than a smaller guy because your muscles will clearly be worked less with isometrics in a sling than by lifting weights. Since you said you are only going to be in it for 3 weeks, don’t worry too much about atrophy, it takes some time to set in, but for sure the isometrics will cause you to atrophy much less than if you did nothing.
I also speak from experience because last summer I had a shoulder athroscopy and was in a sling for 3 weeks and my delts and trapezius on that side did noticably get smaller. But dont worry, when you get back to the iron game they will start catching up quick. [/quote]
again, im just a doctural student studying physical therapy too, but like DaBeard said, doing something is better than doing nothing for preventing atrophy. keep going with the exercises the ortho gave to you. like you said, you can feel them working, so why change it up? 3 weeks isnt a long time at all. broken bones will set you back 6 weeks ina cast and after that there is some muscle wastage, but nothing you cant get back.