I was hoping you or someone on here can help me. I’ve had problems with my left shoulder for years. In November last year I had a partial replacement of the joint due to limited range of motion, pain, bone spurs, and arthritis. I went through PT and was limited until May when I was released to do anything that I could tolerate from a pain stand point.
Since then I have quickly regained my previous conditioning and am back up near my personal bests on deadlift, pendlay rows, weighted pullups, overhead presses (with dumbbells and neutral grip), lateral raises, squats, etc. I am able to put up a lot of weight on the overhead presses as long as i use a neutral grip.
However I am unable to do any chest specific exercises without intense pain and even feeling like i am on the brink of injuring myself. I cannot bench, flat, incline, or decline. I have a little more luck with benching with dumbbells and a neutral grip but still am only working at about 25% to 30% of my previous best and unable to advance at all in weight. I cannot do dips at all.
Do you have any other suggestions for chest workouts that can work around this shoulder pain? Or do you think that doing all of the other exercises on a consistent basis is sufficient for chest growth? Thanks
Im in the Exact same predictament with a SLAP tear in my left shoulder, i can do deads, squats, chins, rows, lateral raises etc. but the only pressing exercise that i can manage without intense pain is overhead db pressing in neutral grip… havent found any chest exercises that i can do, even machine flys aggravate it
If your gym has them try the different variety of chest press machines, some of them allow you to work with a neutral grip and you should experience little to no pain. Or if you are dead set on using a BB, try fat gripz. I’m not sure of the biomechanical reason, but some people with shoulder injuries have reported that their pain decreases with fat gripz.
[quote]drakeusx wrote:
I was hoping you or someone on here can help me. I’ve had problems with my left shoulder for years. In November last year I had a partial replacement of the joint due to limited range of motion, pain, bone spurs, and arthritis. I went through PT and was limited until May when I was released to do anything that I could tolerate from a pain stand point.
Since then I have quickly regained my previous conditioning and am back up near my personal bests on deadlift, pendlay rows, weighted pullups, overhead presses (with dumbbells and neutral grip), lateral raises, squats, etc. I am able to put up a lot of weight on the overhead presses as long as i use a neutral grip.
However I am unable to do any chest specific exercises without intense pain and even feeling like i am on the brink of injuring myself. I cannot bench, flat, incline, or decline. I have a little more luck with benching with dumbbells and a neutral grip but still am only working at about 25% to 30% of my previous best and unable to advance at all in weight. I cannot do dips at all.
Do you have any other suggestions for chest workouts that can work around this shoulder pain? Or do you think that doing all of the other exercises on a consistent basis is sufficient for chest growth? Thanks[/quote]
Yes, i have… unfortunately for my bank account. ART is highly overrated imo. Its a racket from what ive heard from others as well as my own experience… cost a fortune and does absolutely nothing
[quote]Jesse wrote:
Yes, i have… unfortunately for my bank account. ART is highly overrated imo. Its a racket from what ive heard from others as well as my own experience… cost a fortune and does absolutely nothing[/quote]
Too bad you haven’t been able to meet the right practitioner - it’s a great aid for me especially shoulder health. $45/treatment every 4-6 weeks is well worth it to me as I feel and see the difference immediately.
I had an issue following an AC injury where virtually every push exercise was halted for the best part of 9 months! Vertical pulling was also canned. Through trial and error I found only push-ups were painless, mainly those on stands that allowed a neutral grip. I started adding weight to a belt or backpack to increase load. It wasn’t perfect but it was some stimulation. When I moved to a commercial gym, I experimented with chest machines to find something that didn’t hurt. Similarly, I also found that lat pulldowns with a shoulder-width neutral grip behind the neck was also good for me! So it was building up from there, while making sure not to upset the rehab.
Regarding ART, I would say that ART was valuable for me because it highlighted the issue of tightness in the capsule area in the armpit. Once this was manipulated my shoulder health improved dramatically. I am training chest quite hard these days and surprise surprise and can feel it tightening up again, so I know what areas need attention to counter that before it becomes a problem. It also gave me tips on how to manipulate the area myself, so while not perfect the self-treatment does help.
[quote]Jesse wrote:
Yes, i have… unfortunately for my bank account. ART is highly overrated imo. Its a racket from what ive heard from others as well as my own experience… cost a fortune and does absolutely nothing[/quote]
I wouldn’t say that. On a thursday while in Colorado my wife had such a severe back and glute pain that she could barely walk and sitting was even worse. And we were scheduled to leave for Canada the next day. Went to get treated and 2 hour post-treatment she had next to zero pain and the flight went fine. 5 days later she passed her Police Academy exam which included a lot of running, swimming and doing a parcour with a 20lbs vest, climbing walls, crawling in a tunnel, etc.
ART cannot cure all types of problems, but it works extremely well for some types.
[quote]Jesse wrote:
Yes, i have… unfortunately for my bank account. ART is highly overrated imo. Its a racket from what ive heard from others as well as my own experience… cost a fortune and does absolutely nothing[/quote]
Too bad you haven’t been able to meet the right practitioner - it’s a great aid for me especially shoulder health. $45/treatment every 4-6 weeks is well worth it to me as I feel and see the difference immediately. [/quote]
This.
The right practitioner is key. After numerous treatments from a “ART practitioner” with next to no results, I found another practitioner in the area. Within a few sessions I was pressing and throwing a baseball pain free, which I hadn’t been able to do in years. That being said maybe your problem isn’t one that ART would address.