Stupid Injury!!!

Training Bodybuilding
1

Hey guys/gals,
I’m sure that common sense prevails here, and I doubt that I’ll get any general advice that I couldn’t figure out for myself… but maybe some of you guys have specific tips/ideas that’ll help me out.

(Not so) quick background:
30/M/6’1"/215lbs… lifted a little in high school and college, but never made any real gains, so I gave up (didn’t know anything about nutrition or anything else, really). After 10 years of pretty much drinking and farting around, trying diets to lose the beer gut, I decided enough was enough. Been lifting seriously and eating right (by comparison) since November. Made pretty awesome progress right out of the box.

I knew that those beginner’s gains wouldn’t last and I’d just have to keep plugging away, and was happy to do so. I loved lifting. It was the most theraputic thing in the world for me. I read everything I could find, wasted a lot of work hours on T-Nation, thought about the gym all the time. I still made gains, but not as fast, but I was proud of myself and the fact that, at 30, I’ve never looked or felt better.

It was a Good Thing.

Then, one day, I decided to see how much I could press overhead. Used a Hammer Strength “Behind the Neck Press” machine. Normally I don’t do anything behind the neck, but I guess I figured if it was a machine, it would restrict me to a safe ROM.

Wrong.

Felt a little ping in my left shoulder/neck, and while it didn’t bother me too much then, after a night of sleeping on it wrong, I sure felt it the next day. Nevertheless, I had to move some heavy equipment… my left arm was aching and considerably weaker. It hurt bad. Then, I slept on it wrong again.

I was all fucked up. My left arm was, for all intents and purposes, useless.

Fast forward a month… I’d been through physical therapy (mostly a waste of time and money), and hadn’t had an honest workout in all that time. Some of my PT took place in the gym, low weight, high reps, but I don’t think they were really working on what I actually injured and they sure didn’t want me to work hard.

So, here I am. Shoulder doesn’t really hurt anymore (occasional twinges if I move it the wrong way)… back in the gym and trying to get the fire back. To be honest, I don’t enjoy it as much as I did and it’s starting to feel like a bit of a chore.

Could be my imagination, but my gains seem to have melted away… it’s really discouraging.

Anyways, I’m still eating “right”, still lifting. My presses don’t seem to have suffered too much, but my pulls are atrocious. My whole left arm is riddled with “weak spots”. Curling? Forget about it… the left arm just isn’t there. Rows? I can pull 70lbs with my left arm maybe 7 or 8 times with less-than-perfect form… could pull it all day with my right. Cable flyes… my chest wants to do the work, but my left shoulder will occasionally just “give”. Doesn’t hurt or anything… it’s just like somebody pulled the plug on my left arm. I could go on, but you get the point.

What really sucks is, I had a goal in mind for late July (basically to look a shitload better at this year’s Company Beach Party than last year). I was going to meet this goal until I hurt my shoulder. Now, while I might be in slightly better shape, I doubt anybody’d be able to tell at this point. It’s really been a huge setback.

So, my concerns are as follows:

  1. How do I best get my left arm back up to snuff? Less weight, more reps/better form? Twice as many sets for the left arm? Cheat reps? A combination of all three? Or is it, as I fear, simply a matter of time and I will reinjure it if I push too hard?

  2. How do I avoid imbalances? If I use the same (lighter) weight on both arms, then I’m afraid my right side will either stagnate or atrophy.

  3. How do I get the “fire” back? I still make sure that I get to the gym every day, but I’m getting closer and closer to finding convenient excuses to skip a day. Right now I’m slapping myself and saying “NO! You WILL go!”… but how long before I stop listening?

  4. What’s my best option to prepare for the Company Party? Should I keep trying to bulk, or should I try and cut as much as I can to uncover the gains I’ve made so far?

I know it seems silly to be so concerned about this “Company Party”, but after seeing pictures of me at the last one, I was really disgusted. Maybe a silly goal, but it’s MY goal.

Thanks for letting me vent here, and thanks in advance for any helpful advice. Once I feel “worthy”, I’ll post some pics, although I don’t think I have any good “before” pics.

Later!
Bob

2

The goal that gets you moving is always a good goal and never stupid. Goals have to be quantifiable, measurable and attainable. You goal was all three. That makes it a reasonable goal.

If the PT didn’t help, and the shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore it is time to get back to work. So get to it. I would not alternate weight per hand, I would work your curls and tricep presses with a bar, letting each hand do as much as it can. Over time the hurt arm will hold more and more of the load. I would continue to do your old program, modified for proper intensity on the arm, and push myself every day until I was back where I felt I should be. Train insticntively. If you feel that your arm can handle more, push it. If you feel something is more dangerous than its worth, do not do it.

The answer to whether or not you can be in shape, healed, and where you want to be for the company party is within you. You have to find the drive and commitment to making it happen. People here can help you with the how to.

Training wise you need to push the wounded side back up to power one workout at a time. Every workout push that portion being used to its limit. If you push it to the limit every time, the limit will increase, and you will return to where you should be and beyond.

Every athlete has injuries, successful athletes beat the injury and succeed.

Don’t quit or get discouraged, by doing so you let the injury win.

PM anytime for more help.

3

Good stuff. Thanks for your support and motivation!

Onward and upward.

Bob

[quote]TrainerinDC wrote:
The goal that gets you moving is always a good goal and never stupid. Goals have to be quantifiable, measurable and attainable. You goal was all three. That makes it a reasonable goal.

If the PT didn’t help, and the shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore it is time to get back to work. So get to it. I would not alternate weight per hand, I would work your curls and tricep presses with a bar, letting each hand do as much as it can. Over time the hurt arm will hold more and more of the load. I would continue to do your old program, modified for proper intensity on the arm, and push myself every day until I was back where I felt I should be. Train insticntively. If you feel that your arm can handle more, push it. If you feel something is more dangerous than its worth, do not do it.

The answer to whether or not you can be in shape, healed, and where you want to be for the company party is within you. You have to find the drive and commitment to making it happen. People here can help you with the how to.

Training wise you need to push the wounded side back up to power one workout at a time. Every workout push that portion being used to its limit. If you push it to the limit every time, the limit will increase, and you will return to where you should be and beyond.

Every athlete has injuries, successful athletes beat the injury and succeed.

Don’t quit or get discouraged, by doing so you let the injury win.

PM anytime for more help.[/quote]

4

You need to get to a good Chiro. That will probably fix the arm.

5

All I want to say Bob is don’t give up. Everyone gets injured and its the stronger people who come back from injuries to be even better.

6

  1. I’d simply switch to dumbell movements for everything. Then your arms are forced to do the same amount of work. Simply stop when your left arm can’t do it anymore. This will short change your right for while, but anything else will make the imbalance worse and maybe instill some postural problem as you’ll get used to babying your left and it will become second nature. For things like alternate curls, always start with the left and terminate when it can’t do anymore reps. Eventually, by always going left first, it will come back to form. Your right side won’t atrophy, it will maintain and maybe gain a little. You definitely won’t lose anything.

  2. You avoid imbalance by working each side the same way. Doing more on one side is a bad idea unless you’re rehabbing from an injury (as you are). You can do things like DB shoulder presses with one arm. Works the abs well too. Consider changing your program to these kind of movements. What is your program anyway?

  3. I dunno, watch rocky or something. Why are you lifting weights in the first place?

  4. Does your company care in the slightest about your physique? Why do you care that they care? Be selfish, do it for yourself.

Good luck with it. If you set yourself a goal and move towards it, then you’ll be fine.

7

[quote]Sxio wrote:

  1. I’d simply switch to dumbell movements for everything. Then your arms are forced to do the same amount of work. Simply stop when your left arm can’t do it anymore. This will short change your right for while, but anything else will make the imbalance worse and maybe instill some postural problem as you’ll get used to babying your left and it will become second nature. For things like alternate curls, always start with the left and terminate when it can’t do anymore reps. Eventually, by always going left first, it will come back to form. Your right side won’t atrophy, it will maintain and maybe gain a little. You definitely won’t lose anything.

  2. You avoid imbalance by working each side the same way. Doing more on one side is a bad idea unless you’re rehabbing from an injury (as you are). You can do things like DB shoulder presses with one arm. Works the abs well too. Consider changing your program to these kind of movements. What is your program anyway?
    [/quote]

That’s kinda what I’d expected to hear… TrainerinDC’s advice actually took me a little by surprise. Maybe I’ll just need to do both. :^)

Heh, funny you say that… I can’t think of a more motivational movie. I should rent that tonight and watch it with my 13 year old… I’m trying to get him interested in moving his ass a little more (kids these days).

Ultimately, my goal is selfish. I work for a relatively small company… everybody knows everybody, and the summer party is held on a pretty posh beach resort. I never thought I was in great shape before, but always kinda figured I looked “good enough” compared to most guys out there.

Then I saw the pics. I was like, “Holy shit! I don’t want to be this fat sack of crap anymore!” So, basically, I want to maybe drop a few jaws this year (although enough people know this is my goal to negate the surprise a little). No matter. I want to see the pics from this year’s party and know that I’ve accomplished a lot in the last year (not even having started til November!). :^)

[quote]
Good luck with it. If you set yourself a goal and move towards it, then you’ll be fine. [/quote]

Thanks, man. That’s the idea. :^)

Later,
Bob

8

Get some ART done, should help you out.

9

I would go for a few both sided exercises because with a bar the stronger side does more, and the weaker side helps. In your case this would be perfect, the weaker side would work to its full potential, and the stronger side would too. I also agree with db’s and forced reps on the weaker side.

10

OK, here’s what my workout was today. Feel free to criticize (however, it’s important to realize that I had to get to the gym, lift, shower, and get back to work in about an hour.)

I supersetted to save time. 3 sets of each (4 sets of the first two exercises though).

  1. Decline bench ss/w upright rows
    As I said, my presses haven’t suffered too much. I started my workout with the decline bp because I ultimately want to build up a “cut” under my pecs. First set of upright rows I did at a cable station, then some chick stole my spot when I went back to the bench, so I did my remaining sets with a lighter barbell. My bad arm was definitely not in it. Elbow pointing way up as opposed to my good arm, and I couldn’t feel the squeeze in my bicep (I could in my good arm).

  2. Incline press (Hammer Strength) ss/w wide-grip pulldowns
    Nothing earth-shattering to report here. I’ve always HATED wide-grip pulldowns, so I guess that means I ought to do them, huh? I was pretty happy with my numbers on the incline press (although you guys’d prolly make fun of them).

  3. Cable flyes ss/w “pitches”
    OK, this one bears explaining… I was able to keep more weight on the flyes by locking my elbows at 90 degrees (I used to try and keep my arms extended). To be honest, I barely felt these in my pecs. Anyways, a couple times my shoulder gave as I described in my original post. No pain, just simply got pulled back. So, after a set of flyes, I would grab the handle (same one I used for flyes, slightly less weight) and made like a baseball-pitching motion, which is kind of like the reverse of how my shoulder gives when I’m doing flyes. Didn’t hurt, but my arm was definitely like “what the hell is this?”

  4. Palms-up tricep extentions (cable)
    Actually, these were kind of supersetted in with the above… but not much to tell, so…

  5. Curls
    OK, these give me the most trouble it seems, so I wanted to concentrate on these. I’m sad to say, these disappointed the shit out of me. I started with dumbbells. Light weight, too. Left arm just wasn’t having it. So, I moved to an Icarian preacher curl machine. I was able to load decent weight on that, pulled the weight with both arms and tried to use just my bad arm for the negative. That seemed to work. I had a pretty nice pump in the locker room.

I wish I had more time, but I usually have to lift on my lunchbreak!! On the plus side, that pump kinda rekindled the “flame”. Looking forward to my next workout.

Any comments?

Thanks guys,
Rob