Just got diagnosed with a SLAP tear in my left shoulder…MRI with contrast next week to confirm & determine the extent of the tear. How screwed am I? No pressing or overhead lifts for a while…a long while I’m guessing…
Not the best first post here, granted, but I’ve been lurking for a while and I’ve been transforming my body like crazy…former fattie (6’4", 292lbs of lard, now 6’4", 230lbs of muscle) who made the mistake of benching on a Smith Machine one day about 2 months ago when I couldn’t make it to my normal gym and had to lift downstairs in the gym at work…dunce…
Anyway, what can I do to continue training and not let my chest shrivel up?
Shannon
dont do anything else that could aggravate that injury. After surgery it will take at least 6 months of solid rehab. Dont worry about trying to keep anything, you will lose it anyway since you require surgery and rehab. I would recommend anything that doesnt involve pain and allows a good range of motion.
stick to calisthenics and rotator work, scapular pushups and scapular pulldowns etc. train everything else, do more cardio. Do stuff that will make your rehab go faster. now would be a good time to look at Pavel’s evil russian pushup routine and other fun bodyweight exercises.
My tear was left shoulder and I am right handed, tore it doing cleans and had to wait 8 months to get it fixed after a deployment. took 6 months + to get back to being able to do direct shoulder presses again. Benching isnt that great for your shoulder anyway. I am way better now. I actually used Matt Furey’s cable/strand pulling recommendations and a lifeline fitness “chest expander” that helped a lot.
Good luck. They did mine with a oscope, didnt have to open up the shoulder like in the old days, took out some nice sized calcium deposits too 
Congrats on the weight loss, I was in your shoes once too.
I got down to 215 and then started eating a slight surplus to put on mass…between that and lifting heavy, I’ve been packing it on…guess this would be a good time to work on cardio, legs, abs and getting the bodyfat % down…my other big concern is that I teach spinning classes now and I’m probably going to be out of work with that for a while…argh