No Press 5/3/1

Hi all! I am getting ready to start my first round of 5/3/1. I fucked up my shoulder in the winter and I know the rotator cuff has a partial tear (had an MRI) but I think the biceps tendon is also involved. Starting in the January I cut all of my pressing out and in March I cut out any additional biceps work (any curls or rows).

My shoulder is better but still has a way to go. I can pull and squat fine though. So my weekly workout have been: Monday low pull, tuesday off, wednesday squat, thursday low pull, friday off, saturday deadlift.

Since my shoulder is feeling a bit better I was thinking of starting 5/3/1 with:
Monday: Pendlay rows (the reason is that pull ups or anything above the head irritates the hell out of my shoulder)
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: Squat
Thursday: Low pull
Friday: off
Saturday: Deadlift
Sunday: off

What does anybody think? I am going to start with BBB format with the deadlift as squat assistance (and vice versa) and Pendlay row as high pull assistance (and vice versa).It is basically pulling except for the squats which sucks…but really that is all I can do right now.

I try throwing in a really light set of bench or press every once in a while. This week I did 3x10 @95 of close grip bench. I was really psyched during the work out because there was no pain. I was thinking “Great! Next time I will try 5x10 @135” But, the afternoon after and the next day I was sore a shit in the shoulder again so I have decided to wait some more…again.

I think you should get your shoulder fixed if you can’t press, bench or do pull-ups. It’s better to be down a few months than spend a few years trying to train around it.

Well, I am living and working in China at the moment. I went to the hospital to get it checked out. The doc did an MRI and just said “wait three or four months then come back”. It is noticeably better after 3 months but still far from completely healed. If I went back to the doc he will very likely just tell me to wait longer. I dont think they have much/any experience with sports injury here.

What is a high/low pull? Is that like an upright row? If it is close,those things fkd up my shoulder every time I tried them. I stopped them 15 years ago. As someone who has battled a partial tear that took a year to heal, and doing well now I might add:), be careful with deadlifts; They stress the shoulders more than you might think. And finally, believe it or not, when I was down I stopped all benching which hurt like hell and was scary, and did standing militaries. It might seem counter-intuitive, but shoulder presses really helped and didn’t aggravate the tear or hurt that much. Good Luck.

Train what is trainable. And be consistent with your rehab.

What you can do is impossible for anyone to know - except you.