Just. Don't. Suck (Part 1)

Abnormalities? Maybe it needs a little screw tightened then you will be the bonus liftrobot throwing heavy weight around like a beast

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He didn’t believe that I was experiencing biceps tendon subluxations. In guessing the tendon has some fraying and signs of wear and tear from moving around.

Hell, it moved when I grabbed the 45s off the Hack Squat after my four rounds of DB OHP. It tends to slip after I’ve fatigued the surrounding muscles.

The worst case scenario is a screw that attaches the tendon to the humerus. I’m curious how that might affect my usual movement and range of motion since the tendon is attached to the top of the scapula for now.

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Let us know what he says. Curious.

Good news though, at least you can move forward with a plan.

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Yeah waiting in patience for the verdict.

12.27.18

Woke at 240.4 lbs and feeling much better. The upper portion of my stomach was bloated all day yesterday. It was unpleasant. I looked mostly normal this morning. I had a good night of sleep thanks to nyquil.


Shoulder Update

I hate it when I’m right (about injuries).

The MRI showed that my biceps tendon isn’t sitting directly in the groove. It’s not all the way out but but it’s getting there.

We decided to take the wait and see approach. He thought it was a good idea to wait 2-4 months to see if it continues to get better. I want to wait because I’m not ready for another damn surgery.

The surgery would be just as I expected - cut the tendon and attach it to the humerus. Doc said it wouldn’t affect any of my movement or strength in the long term. Recovery time is six weeks in a sling and four months overall.

Another reason I should wait this out is to figure out how important this is to me. I can’t really say that it’s affecting me outside of the gym. Are certain movements that important? Can I keep training to look and feel good without this procedure? I don’t know, but this will give me time to figure that out.

Here’s my list of current restrictions or things I’ve been avoiding:

  • pressing for the most part
  • power cleans (this is a big one)
  • direct bicep work
  • heavy pulling work
  • pushing past the initial fatigue on pulling movements (once my back fades and my biceps kick in I have to quit)

Considering the gym is my main hobby, this list poses a problem. Solutions to these exercises could be high pulls for cleans, reverse grip and lateral curls (think of flexing while holding cables), and I have no answer for the pulling work except straight arm pull downs and reverse fly’s.

The other thing I need to figure out is my hip pain. I couldn’t get to parallel on the Hack Squat yesterday without pain. If I could get more depth then that machine would be great for hitting glutes and hams in addition to quads (like my old squat form). But I had to stop short.

I think the hip pain is probably a higher priority. I haven’t been able to squat, deadlift, front squat, etc. That rules out a lot of CrossFit WOD movements like thrusters, wall balls, overhead squats. I think I could adjust to that type of training with some strength work mixed in but I can’t do that either.

The only thing I know for certain is that I don’t want to be on the shelf for four months recovering from another surgery.

:thinking:

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All tough calls. If you can keep working on strengthening your shoulder and support muscles, perhaps this one you can rehab on your own. Def work on postural positions, upper thoracic extension, and keep your pecs stretched out.

The prone cobra is great for this, all while strengthening the upper/mid back muscles. Will even get you in ext rotation and extension.

Start super D shoulder protocol, if you can stand it. Start with small rom and resistance.

The hips I dont really know. Time may be your friend, or it may not matter. Regardless, I’d continue rehabbing it as aggressive as you can. You know the movements you need to do.

Regardless, if Drs are telling you surgery will get you back to full power, that’s a no brainer to me. Get the surgeries done, rehab properly, and take better caution moving forward. Spot on form. Speciality bars. Higher rep sets shy of failure (training max), properly timed deloads.

There’s no way you just hang up a hobby you love, that can be done for life safely, adding to your quality of life, for 1 year of surgeries and rehab. Hell, knowing you, you’ll be hobbling around anyways still crushing yourself.

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That was my mindset last year with my hip surgery, but here I am a year later still dealing with the same problems.

With my hip I’ve rested it (last year before surgery and again this year) and the first attempt to do a full ROM movement I feel pain. It’s like the rest doesn’t accomplish anything.

I enjoy lifting weights but I’m not sure if I should have a surgery just so I can lift weights. I’m not going to stop training, but I’m sure I can find some alternatives to my problem movements. My goals are to be strong, athletic, look good, and live an active and enjoyable life (including playing sports).

If the shoulder injury only poses a problem in the weight room then is it worth addressing?

The other concern I have with both injuries is that the pain causes my body to guard the area. Other muscles are inhibited. Atrophy ensues. I wasn’t even aware of this last year until I saw the MRI report. Is that something I can ignore? Probably not.

It’s a tough call. I’m in no hurry. Staffing at work sucks so I don’t want to be off the streets for another four months. If I can promote or get on a specialty unit that would allow me to have surgery without affecting my co-workers then I might go for it.

I don’t think 2019 is going to be much better than 2018 though.

OH it will be J, your property is finished, so that’s a BIG win.
You know your injuries and will find a way to work around it, rehab it, and MAYBE just maybe you’ll be able to do some big lifting late in the year.
If NOT, you’ll do something else, something athletic, something fun.
About the surgery, I would do anything to avoid it, if it impacts on life, I would off course do it.

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I’m kind of down today so maybe I’m just being negative but…

My property continues to be a source of stress. It’s finished but it needs its final inspections. The permit pulled by the first contractor expired December 10th. I have to pay another $600+ for a new permit but I can’t do it because I changed the house from a duplex to a single family home. A contractor has to pull the permit. It turns out the guy that’s been doing the work isn’t a licensed contractor. I don’t really know how I’m going to get the final inspections completed or what it means if I don’t.

Side note—to be a licensed contractor you just have to take a test. My dad took a one week long class and passed. He hasn’t paid the city to be a contractor but he passed. The class pretty much taught him how to use the book to pass the test. It doesn’t mean you’re qualified; you just took the test and paid the city your money.

In terms of training…meh. The things I want to do are still limited by my hip pain. I’m not even worried about my shoulder right now. It sucks but it’s the least of my problems. My hip pain is affecting my lifting and athletic interests. I kind of feel like I can’t do anything I actually want to do at this point. I called the doctor’s office and left another message for his nurse. She’s pretty terrible at calling me back. I always have to call multiple times. When she finally called me back last time she said she’d call me the next day to schedule my MRI. That was two weeks ago.

My short term plan is to continue trying to loosen up my adductors and get an MRI to see what’s going on internally. I still can’t take off work for four months for surgery but at least I’ll know if there’s another legitimate injury.

I might try to put together a total body training program to give me a plan and structure in the gym. I’ve just been winging it lately and I don’t like it. I’m lost. I think I could run a more traditional lifting program and just throw in a 10 minute WOD at the end for conditioning (like your program).

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Damn J, you’re really moody today.
Sorry to hear about the property, I thought it was over and you were about to earn a bit of money there.
I sincerely hope you’ll figure out something for all the misery in your body. Let 2019 be the turnaround year.

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I thought I was close to the end with the house too but my plumber called from the inspection office today and gave me the bad news.

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Agreed. It’ll be better once all this is figured out and you actually know your limitations, as opposed to having to retry everything and rely on trial & painful error to let you know what you can or can’t do.

I’ve never had surgery before, but my dad has had several (achilles tendon & his left knee twice) so I’ve heard some things from him. It’s better to just get it over with. He had to deal with a bum knee for 30 years and it ended up throwing his hips and spine out of alignment. He says he felt great once he got a new knee put in and he wished that he had done it 15-20 years ago.

If I am ever in that position, I’m just going to bite the bullet ASAP and get the surgery. I know your situation is a little different, but if you’re in doubt, I would say just get it over with. It might be 4 months on the shelf now with your current situation, but after 20 more years, with all the extra wear and tear that 20 years can bring in a life like yours, it might end up being 6, 8, or 10 months on the shelf. Just a thought. If you know beyond reasonable doubt that this won’t be a problem, then never mind what I’m saying.

I’d just hate to see this nag you for the next few years, assuming we’re all still logging our workouts then. But I agree, the hip should be the top priority. No hips = no athletic movements, which is what you really enjoy doing.

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12.28.18

Woke at 241 and change.

Last night was our final Christmas meal with my in-laws. Christmas Day was the big gathering with the extended family and last night was the gift exchange with my wife’s parents and sister’s family.

I don’t even want to eat today. I guess that’s a good thing because there’s not much in the refrigerator to pack for lunch. The only thing I packed today was a kombucha for my stomach.


I think I already know what I can’t or shouldn’t do. In regards to my shoulder, the doc said I can’t make it worse. That doesn’t mean I can force it though. It’s not pleasant when the tendon pops out of the groove and it kind of inhibits motion. It’s not something I can just power through.

I wish I could. I feel guilty about missing work for injuries that occurred off duty. If this happened on duty then I’d be at home healing up and getting paid for it. But it didn’t and I feel bad leaving my co-workers short handed while I recover. My shift has lost four people this year and we’ve been feeling it lately. The end of the year sucks because everyone is reminded that they have two personal holidays and possibly two well days to use before the end of the year. Once that announcement is made it seems like people are gone at least one day every week until the end of the year.

I don’t plan to let it nag me that long, but I’m trying to put it off. Hell, I’m in pain this morning just sitting in the patrol car. My hip has a dull ache.

I think the best and most efficient approach to this would be to have hip surgery first (if necessary) and then go back for the shoulder surgery once I’m off crutches. To save money I’d go to PT for each issue at the same time. The PT would just have to accept that I’m not paying for two appointments so they’re going to need to do what they can in the time for one appointment and give me a to-do list. I don’t need to pay a $50 copay plus my insurance benefits to be told to do theraband work.


And now on to today’s issues… I’m in a funk in case you couldn’t tell. I think I’m becoming depressed. I didn’t even want to get out of bed today. I don’t want to be at work. I don’t really want to do anything. I think the gloomy weather (it’s cold and gray most days right now) combined with some life stress and these injuries is taking its toll. Normally exercise is my outlet, but that’s part of the problem.

I don’t enjoy killing myself with CrossFit style workouts. I’ve been less than excited to go to the gym lately. I’m going to write a full body program today and try to start doing that. I don’t really have any goals at the moment other than health so I have no idea what the effort or reps will be. The first step will be to identify which exercises I can do pain free.

I think that if I can find a program that I can run consistently then hopefully I can use it to battle some of the winter blues. It would also be nice if my hip surgeon’s nurse would call me back in a timely manner.

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Hang in there man. This will all pass and you will be stronger on the other side.

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How would you fare if you had to chase down a criminal on foot?

If there’s a question in your mind, you should get all this fixed ASAP regardless of whether it happened on duty or not. You didnt mean for any of this to happen.

Get yourself fixed. First and foremost. I’m sure your attitude is bleeding over to your family, work and obviously your hobby you love. Commit to fixing yourself at all cost. Those that love you and care for you will obviously understand. Delaying any of it is not smart. Just my opinion.

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I’d be fine. I haven’t felt any pain while running this past week. I still have to try to convince the doctor to order me another MRI so I can get imaging. I saw him in August after dealing with the pain for a month and he thought it was inflammation so we tried a couple of things to deal with that but I had no relief. I want imaging. I’m quite confident there is a problem since it feels exactly the same as last year. At that time I had a torn hip labrum. I don’t feel like I’m crazy for thinking that identical pain in an identical spot is an identical injury.

If I’m correct then I’ll be two for two this year telling expert surgeons that I’m injured when they thought it was just inflammation :laughing:

Finally, some good news! I went in to the inspection office in uniform (that probably helped) and was able to resolve my issue. On top of that, they charged me the minimum fee to get a new permit - $36. The final inspection is scheduled for Monday. I’m ecstatic!

At least one thing this week has come up Milhouse!

That’s a huge weight lifted off my shoulder. I have people interested in renting the place and I was afraid the house would get condemned or something after they moved in. Thank goodness that’s off the table.

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I’ve decided to run a butchered version of Built for Battle. I’m going to run it with the same weights on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. I’ll add 5 lbs each week and keep going until I get bored, something hurts, or I can’t progress anymore.

I’m also not doing a 3RM day. I’m just going to start too light and go from there. It will give me enough stimulus for maintenance; it’ll let me train a little bit; and it might even help my conditioning. I think the original plan called for a minute of rest between each exercise. I’ll just decrease that as I go to get my conditioning.

The tough part is going to be running it as a true circuit in a commercial gym. I’m going to try to do push press, walking DB lunges, hang SGHP, incline bench, and cable rows. The rack, incline, and cable rows are somewhat close together so it’s possible to pull this off. I just don’t know if it’s going to happen. I thought about dragging a bench to the rack and doing DB incline and rows but the weight increases on each set and that’s going to take too much time to go back and forth to the DB rack. Another option would be to leave the bench next to the DB rack where it belongs and just try to mark my territory with a towel and water bottle in one spot and my bag in the other.

I’ll try to finish each day with another circuit for delts, upper back, and arms.

This may not be as good for me as CrossFit style workouts but it’ll be better for my mental health. If I recall correctly, these heavier circuits left me feeling pretty awesome when I ran this earlier in the year (except for the part where it beat me up–that’s why I’m changing the way I run it).

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It might be better to do something you like to do.
Doing something you like, is much more motivating than doing something you don’t like.

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Definitely. I can’t sustain high intensity workouts that I loathe. That’s going to drive my mental state in the other direction. I’m still hoping to find a balance between the two.

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Training

Build 4 Battle Circuit Test Run

LIMBER 11 WARM UP

ABS
Torso Rotation Machine 100 x 10 ea x 2
Full V Ups x 10 x 2

Circuit (5/4/3/2/1 except rows were 10/9/8/7/6)
PUSH PRESS
135/145/150/160/165

WALKING DB LUNGE
40s/45s/50s/55s/60s

HANG SGHP
150/160/170/180/185

DB INCLINE
60/65/70/75/80

DB ROW
65/70/75/80/85

ASSISTANCE CIRCUIT
SA LAT CABLE RAISE
20 x 10 ea, 20 x 8F/8B HALF

SA REV CABLE FLY
30 x 15 ea, 30 x 10F/10T/10B

REVERSE PRESS DOWN
??? x 15, 10F/10B/10T

REVERSE CABLE CURL
??? x 15, 10F/10T/10B


The main circuit took 24 minutes. I didn’t time my rest. I just moved from one exercise to the next. I don’t know why I didn’t catch it earlier, but this was a terribly designed circuit. :laughing: It was incredibly shoulder heavy. I managed to avoid popping my tendon out of the groove except when I had to hang clean the bar back up for push presses. After the workout was a different story. I could feel the tendon pop out and stay out of the groove by just moving my arm. Putting my phone in my pocket did it. Everything did. No Bueno there.

Lunges were also a waste of time. I’ll have to figure out a way to make this better but it’s tough to have good lower body work included in a circuit when you have my hip. Squats and deadlifts would be the easy choice but I’m avoiding those. I think single leg work is my best bet but it’s not ideal for this type of training.

I ate oatmeal for breakfast and then nothing the rest of the day. I drank some BCAAs on my way to the gym and I feel great! I just ate a big salad with chicken and balsamic vinaigrette dressing for dinner. The day is ending on a high note.

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