About 2 months ago, I realized that my left shoulder was hurting to much for me to work throught it in the gym, anymore. So, I started seeing a physical therapist, who told me that I can’t work my chest or shoulders for at least a few months. He says that my shoulder has a tendancy to come out of socket, and when it does, the top of my bone grinds away the capsule of cartilage surounding my joint capsule. This means absolutely no presses, except in a downward motion (ie: tricep pushdown). This is obviously going to cause me to atrophy like crazy, and I love this sport too much to let that happen. So, I was wondering if anyone out there has any suggestions as to how I can keep myself from losing any more muscle mass. I’ve already dropped from 194lbs to 183lbs in body weight. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Fire your therapist and go to a ART specialist. NOW. My ART guy had me continue with pressing movements, without using full range of motion and low weight. Within a month, I was back to pressing normal poundages. With no problems.
Diddo on the ART. Start w/ floor DB presses, then graduate to Swiss Ball DB presses. Check your posture. Stand with your side to the mirror, look at your reflection…can you see quite a bit of your upper back? You shouldn’t be able to see any of it, just your medial delt and pecs. Do your palms face towards your thighs, or behind you? They should naturally fall right down your TFL line, facing towards each other. Do you have these problems?
I am having the same problem. It started in both shoulders from doing behind the neck press (heavy). I laid off for awhile and then stopped going below parallel for presses, no behind the neck presses or pulldowns, and ice/motrin.
One shoulder fully healed, left still sore to very sore. I don’t want to go lighter but I have and do a lot of rotator cuff muscle building and stretching. That helps if I do it 3 times a week.