Shoulder Problem and Overhead Press

Hi! I followed your original 5-3-1 program with good results, but 1 year ago my left shoulder was operated. They couldn`t do that much because the cartilage was so damaged. I can still do squat with safety squat bar, bench with close grip and even dips, but OHP is totally out of the question, or any other shoulder exercise for that matter. Do I just follow the program and skip OPH? Or is there anything to do instead? A bit confused now.

Thanks!

I would do incline press as my 4th lift is I was in this situation.

Get your Clean on!

Any BARBELL pressing movement is fine. Including benching again.

Okay! Thanks for your answers! I`ll try Floor Press and see how that works.

Similar situation. except I could not Bench, OP, squat, dead, etc. Anything that included the shoulders was out. For squat, it was the weight of the bar.

I worked on Isometrics, bands, broom stick, etc. ANYTHING to get mobility back. Took about 6 months before I could press a regular bar.

Favourite exercise is the seated OH press from pins.

And yeah, barbells. As soon as you feel real pain, STOP. you are done for the day. Learn from it and make changes the next week.

This worked for my friend. Scroll down to mod 3 where Jim talks about shoulder pain.
5/3/1 Reloaded

Really depends on the shoulder issue. I can do OHP and incline bench with the narrow handles on the swiss bar and weighted ring push-ups. So that’s what I do. Pull-ups from rings and rows don’t seem to bother mine. Face pulls and pull-a-parts are incredibly painful. Do stuff that doesn’t hurt. Don’t do things that hurt.

Traction seems to help a bit for me. Both with a band attached to my rack and holding a light dumbbell and just dangling my arm with slight movement.

I have also started to develop shoulder pain from OHP. This sucks, because OHP is my favorite.

Do you not recommend doing dumbell presses because you can use less weight? I am thinking, since I have no shoulder problems if I use natural grip/ hammer grip (if with a barbell it is parallel to my body I mean 90 degrees), that I can maybe develop my shoulder strength/mobility for a few weeks/months using dumbells and then try to get back to barbells.

I guess it is really important to do some kind of a vertical pushing movement, right? I can’t think of many alternatives, if barbell presses can’t be done.