Maintaining Muscle

I’m a 16 year old defensive back and will be getting arthoscopic surgery on my shoulder to correct instability. I will train hard untill the surgery (docter sys it ok to do so beacause there are no tears at all) but I am worried about losing size and strength in the time after surgery where I can’t lift heavy or at all. Any suggestions on maintaining muscle when I can’t train would be appreciated.
F.Y.I heres my current stats:
5’10"
180lbs.
bench 290
squat 450 (butt to floor)
clean ~255
33inch vertical leap

I’d suggest trying to lift light as soon as you can. Maybe even start of with some resistance tubing or bands. Otherwise, try lifting the other side of your upper body, and leg movements not requiring much upper body usage.

I’m not sure what the exact terminology would be here, but focusing on eccentric movements has been shown to have more of a strength transfer to the other side of the body compared to lifts focusing on concentric movements. So maybe training the good side of your upper body with eccentric movements could help maintain strength in the surgury side.

~Paul

I had my shoulder scoped last summer and lost a ton of weight (220 down under 200). For the first couple weeks it was hard to eat anything at all. I could hardly even move. I had a trio of torn tendons in my shoulder though, so maybe my situation was worse?

I guess without lifting, the only thing you can really do to limit muscle loss is to make certain you’re getting enough calories! Eating solids was nearly impossible for me so maybe try lots of protein shakes.

What type of surgury are you having? If there are no tears, is your shoulder dilocating or subluxing often? If your surgeon is wanting to do a thermal heating of your capsule to tighten it, i’d suggest a second opinion. I was told to get this a few years back when it first came out. Thank god i went to get a few other opinions cause i found out that this type of surgury often reverses itself and you end up with a shoulder in worse condition. Make sure you’ve given a complete rehab program time to work before jumping under the knife.