I hurt my rotator about a year and a half ago and am recognizing the warning signs I didn’t heed the first time around. When I went to the doctor after hurting my shoulder he told me it was inflamation in the rotator cuff and I should lay off using it as much as possible. I stopped benching heavy for about 6 months, did flexibility and mobility shit and have only just over took my previous bench PB. And the issue seems to be returning…
My shoulder feels weak, there is some mild pain when I bench. Not benched for 5 days just now and experiencing a feeling of inflamation along the top of the shoulder, in the area I associate with the rotator cuff (rightly or wrongly). It is clicking in the joint when I move it. I tried doing some band work but it was clicking pretty bad when I was doing it and I laid off.
I was wondering if anybody on here could point me towards some actionable shoulder prehab/rehab shit I could do to avoid injury without having to drop out of my bench program? Or anything to expediate recovery.
The best thing I did for my shoulder was high-frequency, high-rep lateral raises and bent rear delt flyes. Low reps were fine, but when I tried high-reps I found with just a 5 lbs dumbbell I couldn’t even reach 20 reps in my “sick” shoulder, whereas my “healthy” shoulder was just fine.
I started with a set of 15 at the end of any upper body day, adding a rep every workout or two, building up to 25 reps, then upping to the next level dumbbell: 7.5 lbs, 10 lbs, 12.5 lbs, 15 lbs, etc. and starting over at 15 reps, building up to 25 again, and so on. So now I’m up to 20 lbs dumbbells for 25 reps to finish off my upper body days and my shoulders are pretty much fine. Helped my “mirror appeal”, too as my delts filled out more.
Also: stretching each pec, at least one set of 60 seconds passive stretching, then one minute of broomstick stretch, every training day.
Pain-free range of motion for everything, both weights and stretches.
If you can find a good PT it would be a good idea to visit them a time or two. They are hard to find, but a good one will really be able to recognize your weaknesses and imbalances and really direct you to the proper exercises. I know a lot of what they do seems like fluff, but you can’t replace the expertise of the good ones.