I’m just starting the 5th week of a 9 wk cycle (Test E 750mg/E6D + 40 mg dbol wk 1-4) and about a week and a half ago I started having some serious shoulder issues. The shoulder pain has becoming crippling anytime I flat bb bench, do dips, or squats- I can do most other exercises with virtually NO pain (unless I do them after said exercises) I was referred to a Orthopedic doctor by my chiro after they couldn’t ‘reset my shoulder’. The appointment was today, they took x-rays and said they looked fine.
There was no scar tissue building up or ANY problems whatsoever.
However, the entire time I spoke with the doctor I felt as if I was being rushed out. They didn’t check my weight, blood pressure, ask about my routine/split, whether or not I’d been lifting more lately/how long I’d been lifting, etc. etc. In fact, all he asked was whether or not I had an injury I was aware of or if I had ever had surgery done on it. He claimed my range of motion was fine- which it kind of isn’t. You can also physically see that my shoulders are incredibly unbalanced, one shoulder is slumped and rolls forward- which my chiro commented on, thus me going to the doctor in the first place.
The first comment out of his mouth after delivering his diagnosis was “I’m not going to give you a cortizon shot…” to which I thought to myself “wtf?”. At no point did I say anything about cortizon shots, nor did I mention my use of AAS. I wouldn’t have done the cortizon shot had he recommended it anyway, so wtf?
Essentially his diagnosis was “You MIGHT want to stop doing the exercises that cause the pain for about 6-8 weeks.”
Being in the middle of a cycle and then having to completely STOP squatting and benching seems like a waste of a cycle. I propose I stay on cycle, and continue to bench and squat (no dips though) but with substantially lower weight. I don’t seem to have much if any pain when I do a warm up set of 225 for bench. I think I could probably do around 12-15 reps at that weight w/out pain, as it seems to be 275 and over is where I start to have issues.
Long post, just looking for input.
I had some trouble with my shoulder on flat BB bench. Switching to the HS flat bench fixed the problem after about 6 weeks. After that, I learned how to BB bench the correct way, and had lost almost no strength on my regular BB bench.
Do you have access to HS bench machines?
[quote]DOHCrazy wrote:
I had some trouble with my shoulder on flat BB bench. Switching to the HS flat bench fixed the problem after about 6 weeks. After that, I learned how to BB bench the correct way, and had lost almost no strength on my regular BB bench.
Do you have access to HS bench machines?[/quote]
No, I don’t. I might just switch to DB flat bench in place of BB. I only do incline with dumbbells because the incline bench at my gym is horrible- and I really don’t have any shoulder issues doing that, so maybe it will help.
Still, I’ll probably try to keep it light.
So you plan to push yourself through an injury just because you are mid cycle?
Doesnt make a whole lot of sense to me. Come off cycle and take some time to let your injuries heal would be a much more intelligent approach.
Another approach would be to go and see a good regestered sports massage therapist. Or any other professional to get a proper diagnosis of whats going on with the possible injury.
[quote]LillGuy001 wrote:
So you plan to push yourself through an injury just because you are mid cycle?
Doesnt make a whole lot of sense to me. Come off cycle and take some time to let your injuries heal would be a much more intelligent approach.
Another approach would be to go and see a good regestered sports massage therapist. Or any other professional to get a proper diagnosis of whats going on with the possible injury.[/quote]
If you read my post you should’ve come across the “diagnosis: no injury” part. He said there was no scar tissue build-up or anything ‘serious’ ( and I believe him at his word there ) and that I could keep lifting, just to ‘maybe take a break from those lifts’- so I don’t think that really constitutes “pushing myself through an injury”.
Furthermore- taking time off isn’t the be-all,end-all cure especially when you don’t know what the problem is.
As I suspected, I went through my shoulder routine yesterday and had NO ISSUES when staying with high-reps. However, my shoulder routine didn’t seem to exacerbate my shoulder pain before as much as benching/dips did, so I’ll have to wait a few days before seeing how that goes.
I would have loved to have been able to see someone in sports medicine about this because I think most doctors, when it comes to problems like this, are incapable of proper diagnosis. I was seeing someone at my gym in LA about it when I was out there for awhile, but they couldn’t permanently fix it, so it wasn’t a solution and was becoming expensive. Now, I don’t have thousands of dollars to blow on medical bills so I can’t afford anything like that- I could barely swing this doctor visit.