I believe a picture of your back with the so-called atrophy is warranted. You know, as an edumacation exercise for the rest of us over 35ers. To emphasize the importance of rehab / prehab and…stuff.
Your coach is great. I wish I had a coach.
Do you pay him? or does he help you as a friend?
I ought to do shoulder rehab exercises too. No serious injuries yet, but I don’t want to wait for that to happen. Good job on the benches.
Looks like on the handoff you let your shoulders come up. You need to roll under with the handoff, letting the spotter do most of the work. This will keep your back tighter, shorten the stroke, and allow you to pull the bar down, and bring your chest to the bar. Pretend like the bar is staying still and you are bringingyour chest to the bar.
[quote]LSUPOWERDC wrote:
Looks like on the handoff you let your shoulders come up. You need to roll under with the handoff, letting the spotter do most of the work. This will keep your back tighter, shorten the stroke, and allow you to pull the bar down, and bring your chest to the bar. Pretend like the bar is staying still and you are bringingyour chest to the bar.[/quote]
Yeah, this makes a big difference with staying tight. Once I learned to do this, it made a big difference. When I take the hand-off, I pull my blades tight together before they let it go. It definately takes a few inches off the stroke and keeps everything much tighter.
…sounds like a bit of tough love about your rehab exercises–that’s hard to hear! you’re so smart! and so extremely eager! i do hope you get back on the rehab routine of the lameo boring nasty exercise stuff…we need you healthy and fully healed! no more injuries! love that shoulder of yours!!!
…
re: rehab
I’ve been doing re-hab excercises for nerve damage in my neck for… oh what is it now… two years. I suppose now we call it pre-hab. I have hated it every single time. I feel much the same way about filing my taxes or watching Meg Ryan movies… or the f@@king sinus rinse my doctor made me do for 5 weeks last winter. But at the end of the day, it’s what allows me to keep lifting.
Unsexy, but non-negotiable. We need to think ong-term, here, right?
Bizarre. I sign on to find that my picture has disappeared from the start of my log. Possessed. This site is.
FarmerBrett: I do not pay my coach. I consider myself extremely fortunate. He takes exceptional care of me and has taught me almost everything I know about this sport.
LSU/O: Good advice on the bench. I’ve been trying to remember to drop my shoulder blades down and pinch when I get the handoff.
So I was a bit concerned about what my ART guy said today about my muscle atrophy and have consulted with two physical therapists, who both did a visual and brief diagnostic. [I’m not wasting any time here.] And here’s the bizarre truth: my supraspinatus (the tendon I tore) is working but weak, which isn’t a big surprise. But the adjacent infraspinatus is not firing at all. When isolated, it doesn’t work. One of the PTs suggested it could be nerve confusion. The muscle, for some reason, just stopped working and the others have compensated. But the result is atrophy and structural imbalance. So I’ll be doing MORE PT with soup can weights to try to get it engaged again. I’ve got a call in to the PT who rehabbed my cuff last summer to have a consult. No one can accuse me of not being proactive.
All of this may explain why I still have no overhead pressing strength and feel wildly unstable in certain planes when flat benching.
The body is a wondrous and bizarre machine, isn’t it?
It is indeed. I guess the good news is that there is something you can do (no matter how boring and stupid you find it) that will bring up your numbers on the stuff you care about. Better than being stuck and not knowing what to do to fix it, I guess.
I have similar(ish) things going on with my feet in the sense of having to work really hard doing silly things (like scrunching up a towel with my toes, standing on my toes, stretching out my toes). I don’t do it as often as I should… Perhaps I shall start. It really does seem to help my stability and also gives me a little extra ankle dorsiflexion.
Being proactive will pay off. Better to put in a little extra work than to miss something important.
[quote]ouroboro_s wrote:
[quote]LSUPOWERDC wrote:
Looks like on the handoff you let your shoulders come up. You need to roll under with the handoff, letting the spotter do most of the work. This will keep your back tighter, shorten the stroke, and allow you to pull the bar down, and bring your chest to the bar. Pretend like the bar is staying still and you are bringingyour chest to the bar.[/quote]
Yeah, this makes a big difference with staying tight. Once I learned to do this, it made a big difference. When I take the hand-off, I pull my blades tight together before they let it go. It definately takes a few inches off the stroke and keeps everything much tighter.[/quote]
Yeah, pull tighter, and let everything sink down into the bench before they let go.
Better to know and fix it, than not know and break it again. You are doing the right thing.
[quote]kpsnap wrote:
So I was a bit concerned about what my ART guy said today about my muscle atrophy and have consulted with two physical therapists, who both did a visual and brief diagnostic. [I’m not wasting any time here.] And here’s the bizarre truth: my supraspinatus (the tendon I tore) is working but weak, which isn’t a big surprise. But the adjacent infraspinatus is not firing at all. When isolated, it doesn’t work. One of the PTs suggested it could be nerve confusion. The muscle, for some reason, just stopped working and the others have compensated. But the result is atrophy and structural imbalance. So I’ll be doing MORE PT with soup can weights to try to get it engaged again. I’ve got a call in to the PT who rehabbed my cuff last summer to have a consult. No one can accuse me of not being proactive.
All of this may explain why I still have no overhead pressing strength and feel wildly unstable in certain planes when flat benching.
The body is a wondrous and bizarre machine, isn’t it?[/quote]
I was just checking in to your log, to mention that Poliquin believes in a direct linkage between increasing external rotator strength and increasing bench pressing strength. I now do external rotator exercises at least twice a week, and I’m up to a whopping max of 15 lbs with good form. (My overhead press 3 RM is 150 lbs -i.e. don’t fret about using soup can weights on this stuff.)
Strengthening external rotators combined with stretching internal rotators are my new staples for shoulder health. Plus posterior delt flyes every upper body workout for muscle balance.
[quote]punnyguy wrote:
I was just checking in to your log, to mention that Poliquin believes in a direct linkage between increasing external rotator strength and increasing bench pressing strength. I now do external rotator exercises at least twice a week, and I’m up to a whopping max of 15 lbs with good form. (My overhead press 3 RM is 150 lbs -i.e. don’t fret about using soup can weights on this stuff.)
Strengthening external rotators combined with stretching internal rotators are my new staples for shoulder health. Plus posterior delt flyes every upper body workout for muscle balance.[/quote]
This is incredibly helpful. Thank you. Unfortunately, I can’t even externally rotate my affected arm with an unloaded cable, let alone weights, at this point. I’m that weak in that plane. Definitely got some work to do. And I’m wildly motivated by the fact that studies suggest external rotation strength is tied to bench press.
My ART guy is big on Poliquin. I’ve read a few of Poliquin’s training books, enough to recognize how much he stresses “structural balance.”
Today is DL. I’m already nervous.
DL is for you to be CRUSHING.
shoulder prehab is the shit. it takes 5 minutes as part of your warm up, and will keep you benching forever. do it!
Today’s training: Conventional DL
RDL
8/45
Conventional DL
5/95 double overhand grip
5/115
4/135
3/155 mixed grip
2/175
1/200 full gear . . . first time in ten months . . . this went up so ridiculously fast
3/220 (double bodyweight)
1/175 straps down, trying a different grip
Well, there it is. A triple at double my bodyweight. The only problem is that I didn’t lock out the last rep because my grip failed on my right side. But I did the work of pulling the weight up. My form gets a little worse with each rep. But I’m happy with the effort. (Find the joy, right?) Here’s the vid of me looking stylin’ (nasty) in my size 28 suit doing the pull.
Next week I’ll up the weight and drop to doubles. DL is truly a lift where I excel at pulling singles. I can pull much more for a 1 RM than the calculators predict based on, say, a 3 RM. After my next meet, I really need to work on getting my hips down to start the pull.
Wide-Stance Squat
5/45
5/95
3/5/120
Still loving these. I had to work to get these reps, especially on my last set.
Seated Lat Pulldown
2/8/90
Weighted Hypers
2/8/45
Had more planned, but I was tired and hungry. Tomorrow it’s back to the grind with all the rotator cuff work.
Sweet pulls! Congrats.
AWESOME!!!
The first 2 reps were really quick.
Stylin’ and strong = sweet combo