Shoulder Rehab, What Do I Do Now?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Over the past 8 months I’ve had really irritating shoulder problems. I rested them for 4 months, popped in and out of the gym occasionally for another 3 months and they still hadn’t got any better. All was caused by carrying a heavy bag on one shoulder for a couple months.

Recently over the past month I have been training my back every other day, or once every 2 days.

I’ve been doing deadlifts (almost got back up to the weight I was at before I started, about 140kg for 2, I’m at 125kg for 1-2 currently, so i’m happy with that), seated cable rows, machine rows, bent over barbell rows.

When I started off back training, seated cable rows felt fucking awful, I could only feel the left side of my back properly. However, I learnt how to bring my shoulders down and back and that has helped a lot.

Machine rows help me feel whats happening there too, it feels like my right side isn’t contracting properly, because i’m used to hyperextending that side compared to the other.

There is just a few things irritating me now that I don’t know what to do to fix:

  • If I perform a set of pull ups, pulldowns, it hurts my deltoids and it feels like my arms are literally going to fall on the floor after the set.

  • Lateral raises, front raises etc. feel fine when I do them, but instead of DOMS the next day I just get a tightness in my right delt and a painful throbbing.

  • I get burning in my rear delt when I do dumbbell bench press, but it feels OK when I do barbell bench press (very light weight, usually 1-2 set of 15-20, once a week)

  • Whenever I do shoulder dislocates, my shoulders pop and crack when my hands come down to my lower back.

Overall it seems that the constant rowing/back work has helped a TON with my problem, and I feel slightly OK benching, but I’m scared to get back into regular heavy chest work.

It hasn’t helped so much shoulder exercises, since my right medial delt throbs a lot the next day, and very very light lat pulldowns with emphasis on shoulders down and back seem to feel good.

I just want to know what exercises/rehab techniques I could be doing to help with the cracking/popping I get on shoulder dislocates, and how to alleviate the throbbing I get on my right deltoid.

Note: I’m going to see a Shoulder Orthopaedic on the 15th of july and he is going to set me up with an MRI.

But if I don’t require surgery then there definitely is an exercise that exists that will help with my problem, I just want to know what it could be!

2

I had a long string of shoulder injuries and after taking off about half a year from any training, and seeing about 7 different doctors and 2 physical therapists, I’m only ow starting to feel better. A good physical therapist will do wonders, as long as while you’re doing the therapy you quit doing anything else that irritates it. I just moved to Ohio and got referred to a doctor that works with the Cleveland Browns. He gave me a series of lidocaine injections and a few anti-inflammatory injections over a couple months.

It’s a good opportunity to work on your legs, lots of leg pressing and other work that doesn’t irritate your shoulders (any form of squatting was out of the question for me). Once you start feeling better try incorporating a lot of lightweight external rotation work and pushups are also really helping my shoulders.

The better the healthcare you have the more options you’ll have, I got pretty lucky, but it’s still been a long road.

3

It is not the most popular thing to suggest here but try Acupuncture…

I had a nagging injury from a hammer press machine and it would not heal… Docs, meds, ice, rest… Nothing helped permanently till I gave it a shot…

I did not think it would work but when your in pain and want to train and train hard like you used to you will try most any thing…

One thing is that it is not like a med that you do once and its over… you will need 3-6 treatments spaced 2 to 3 days apart… Also try to get a doc of chinese medicine to do it.

any way good luck…

5

[quote]forkknifespoon wrote:
I had a long string of shoulder injuries and after taking off about half a year from any training, and seeing about 7 different doctors and 2 physical therapists, I’m only ow starting to feel better. A good physical therapist will do wonders, as long as while you’re doing the therapy you quit doing anything else that irritates it. I just moved to Ohio and got referred to a doctor that works with the Cleveland Browns. He gave me a series of lidocaine injections and a few anti-inflammatory injections over a couple months.

It’s a good opportunity to work on your legs, lots of leg pressing and other work that doesn’t irritate your shoulders (any form of squatting was out of the question for me). Once you start feeling better try incorporating a lot of lightweight external rotation work and pushups are also really helping my shoulders.

The better the healthcare you have the more options you’ll have, I got pretty lucky, but it’s still been a long road.

[/quote]

I’m not bothering with any physical therapists anymore. I am seeing the orthopaedic guy in july since it’s for free but thats it.

I honestly think the majority of the private therapists you see are hindered by their wanting of your money, so they don’t help you as much as they could so you keep going back.

I know there are a select few who are probably brilliant and don’t feel this way, but i’m sick of forking out £100’s to find one.

It also thoroughly pisses me off when I spend an hour of my time with a therapist, giving them £60 and the only thing I get out of the session is them telling me to do stupid exercises like weightless lateral raises to ‘re-train my muscles’.

The only thing I see a physical therapist, physio doing for me right now that I can’t do myself is PNF stretching of some kind and massages, and if I really wanted that i’d search for an ART therapist, which are few and far between in the UK, like my money.

That is why I love this site so much, so much information and exercises to help rehab injuries, the trouble is after reading through a dozen articles I can’t pin-point on what particular exercises I should be doing (which is why I’m asking).

I like the acupuncture idea, when I get some spare cash i’ll look into it a bit more.

As for the exercises that irritate me, should I wait another 1-2 weeks before trying them? Then slowly implement them using very light weights?

p.s - gained over 2" on my quads the past 6-7 months due to training legs so frequently :stuck_out_tongue:

6

Good work with the legs.

If an exercise bothers you enough then completely stop doing it for a few weeks, and like you said try coming back to it but with incredibly light weights. Physical therapists have a hard time understanding the athletic mind sometimes, so when you are having shoulder problems they expect you to drop everything and start building your shoulders all over again with body weight stuff and elastic band work.

If it’s super bad then you may need to do that, but you shouldn’t. I got lucky and worked with a physical therapist who works with the Cleveland Browns (professional American football team- I realized you weren’t american). I think that thing that helped me most was external rotation stuff with elastic bands and a cable machine.

Good luck