I need help! I recently strained my pec as well as my rhomboid. Obviously, I need to take time off from lifting (and baseball) but that is very hard for me to do.
Mainly, I don’t want to get fat! I gain fat very easily, just due to sheer quantity of food (I eat very clean) but when I’m lifting, the food is used for recovery.
I was thinking I’d drop my calories pretty low (from about 3000 to 2300-2600 depending on activity level that day)
As well as being nervous that I’m going to gain fat, the lower cals got me thinking that when I get back in the gym, Im gonna be a week sonbitch.
You can train legs. You might be able to deadllift. You can train the other arm, and I don’t mean just curls and triceps. You can do single arm DB Chest Presses and overhead presses. One Arm Row variations. There’s lots you can do for both shoulders. You can try variations of Cable Pull to see if there are some you can do. There’s light stuff you should be doing for therapy. There’s sprints and plyos. Don’t be a pansy, just do what you can.
[quote]on edge wrote:
You can train legs. You might be able to deadllift. You can train the other arm, and I don’t mean just curls and triceps. You can do single arm DB Chest Presses and overhead presses. One Arm Row variations. There’s lots you can do for both shoulders. You can try variations of Cable Pull to see if there are some you can do. There’s light stuff you should be doing for therapy. There’s sprints and plyos. Don’t be a pansy, just do what you can.[/quote]
Not bein a pansy bro. It actually happened dead lifting so I can’t do that. I basically can’t hold a weight because it pulls on my pec, can’t put a barbell on my back for squats because I don’t have the ROM right now
And why would I want to inbalance my body by doing chest/shoulder presses on one side. And I do sprints fasted in the morning.
Thanks for the input but you didn’t even answer my question.
Sorry, what I was hoping for was someone to comment on the caloric intake and my nutrition while I’m injured. I know my injury and my limits so the comment about being a pansy was irrelevant. I guess I should have been more specific. Maybe should have posted in nutrition section…
I don’t think I’d be too far out of line suggesting that you do exactly what you said. Drop your calories to compensate for the decreased activity levels. Then just adjust as you go along based on whether you’re gaining or losing weight. The advice on the nutrition forum generally has been “just make sure you keep your protein intake high, because you don’t want to be burning muscle”.
I don’t think ‘on edge’ was calling you a pansy for being injured. It was more a matter of “how about you figure out some exercise variations that you CAN do in the meanwhile while you heal”.
More than likely, when you’ve finished healing, you’ll be much weaker than you were before the injury. Your best bet is to start slow and work your way back up to your former strength levels. Don’t try to rush the process or you could hurt yourself again.
And why would I want to inbalance my body by doing chest/shoulder presses on one side. [/quote]
It really won’t imbalance your body. Sure if it was long term it would but this is likely going to be a couple of months max. It also seems to speed recovery on the injured side.
I couldn’t push or pull on the right side for over a year (frayed labrum). I finally said to myself “fuck it, I’m just going to work the left side”. I worked the left side all out and the right side just what little I could. Some days it was zero, some days I’d be pressing a whopping 5 lbs, but after just a couple of months (and this was after a year of physical therapy and all that shit) I suddenly I was able to do more and more. It was probably less than 9 months when my right side caught my left side on presses and has remained even since.
Working the healthy side is a good thing when injured.
I don’t think ‘on edge’ was calling you a pansy for being injured. It was more a matter of “how about you figure out some exercise variations that you CAN do in the meanwhile while you heal”.
.[/quote]
Exactly. My whole point is figure out what you CAN do. I guess I’m not as succinct as Rez.
Same problem here. In my experience with time off for an injury, I had to completely restructure my diet to a calorie deficit. I put 10 pounds on fast before I gave my diet the attention it needed.
May I suggest cardio to help balance you out, My injury is a shoulder injury, but I am able to get on a stationary bike and pedal for an hour to get that heart rate up. The stationary bike is great to engage your lower body while keeping your chest injury from activating and making that heart pump out your chest, a good hour can burn about 600 calories if you put a little umph into it.
If you put your attention to your injury, you will have to make changes, that’s just the nature of the beast.