Training with shoulder injury

Hi,

I would like some advice from the more experienced people here.

5 years ago, a friend got me interested in training with kettlebells. I loved it. But I had never heard about developing tendons and joints, building volume slowly, etc. so I just trained on (I was 32 at the time). From a completely untrained start point, after 6 months I was doing Turkish Get-Ups, Snatches and 1-arm Swings with mid-air arm switch with a 20 kg kettlebell. I started becoming more and more tired after workouts, but insisted on training, and after a few weeks the injury was a reality.

For 12 months I had chronic pains and tingling nerves, I was hospitalised and could not work for months. They never found the exact spot of the injury, but with physiotherapy I slowly trained up to normal function. I had started to think I could start exersising again, and found BtGB. Thought it was fantastic and started doing tuck lever, tuck planche and pull-ups. After two weeks, I found foundation instead and shifted to that. But my injury had already recurred, and it has become so much worse over the last month that I cannot exercise with my right arm. 

I am taking care of this medically - I have a schedule for ultrasound, and they think they may be able to do surgery - and I use a physiotherapist regularly. So I do not need help with that.

I do not want to lose the benefits of foundation, so i have changed my program like this:

HPB: Incline push-up with iM - dropped.

RC:   Hinge Row with iM - dropped.

Instead of Scapular Shrugs I will do the PE2 (forearm plank), because I know from my previous physiotherapy that this exercise does not cause problems for my shoulder.

 I can do ABH if keep the right arm tucked in (stretching only the left). And I can do Deck Squats with reduced momentum, so I just roll on my lower back (I can still get up). I can also do Tuck-Ups if I do not take my arms all the way over my head. I have no way of doing the iM for that though (windmill), even without any weight. So I thought I would do the iM for scap shrugs instead (swivel hips) where I am very far from mastery (i.e. both glutes, both knees).

My questions are:

is it OK to modify the form of the exersises in this way?

Is it OK to go the the PE2 of sPL and then go back and hopefullly do PE1 in half a years time if they fix my shoulder?

Is it OK to swap the iM's like that? I know Coach says the exercises come very explicitly in pairs. And I think I can see why - it seems to me that the swivel hips make my knees rather loose, so they start hurting when I do the Deck Squats (but this might also be because the slow execution puts additional stress on my knees).

Note that I am after the GB-specific opinion here - I also discuss all exercises with my physiotherapist.

Thanks!

Hey, sorry to hear that, here's to your getting well.

My very unqualified opinion is to just do what you can, in order to stay active. Getting the blood flowing should improve the healing process.

I suffered elbow tendonitis (golfer's elbow) some years ago, also from some immature training philosophy. After a period of complete rest of pulling movements for the elbow, I began rehabbing, and had pretty good success with allowing myself to do exercises that would result in a sensation of pain or tenderness of about 2-3 on a scale of 10 - Only a very slight pain. To me, that was a signal, that the injured area had been stimulated just enough for a little inflammation to occur, and thus subsequently repair to take place.

It's easy to do nothing at all, but then the injury will surely flare back up when you begin training, because the tissue has been altered by the injury, and will remain like that, unless inflammation is allowed to do its thing and repair the area. It's also easy to do to much too soon and be right back in the middle of an injury, so proceed with care.

Good luck!

Michael Borregaard said:

 (...) I started becoming more and more tired after workouts, but insisted on training, and after a few weeks the injury was a reality.

 

For 12 months I had chronic pains and tingling nerves, I was hospitalised and could not work for months. They never found the exact spot of the injury, but with physiotherapy I slowly trained up to normal function.

 

(........ 5 years later........?)

 

I had started to think I could start exersising again, and found BtGB. Thought it was fantastic and started doing tuck lever, tuck planche and pull-ups. After two weeks, I found foundation instead and shifted to that. But my injury had already recurred, and it has become so much worse over the last month that I cannot exercise with my right arm. 

 

I am taking care of this medically - I have a schedule for ultrasound, and they think they may be able to do surgery (...)

1- What was the precise nature of your injury 5 years ago? [you say they never found, but it is not very clear] - What makes you think it was caused by the kettlebells?

2- Did you remain inactive for 5 years?

3- What is the nature of today's injury? Is it the same as the old one? [you seem to relate the two quite precisely]

4- There are talks of surgery... that means that (1) it is serious enough that you should listen to your surgeon; did he recommend exercise or physio? and (2) that there may be hope yet to be cured in the future.

FredInChina said:

1- What was the precise nature of your injury 5 years ago? [you say they never found, but it is not very clear] - What makes you think it was caused by the kettlebells?

2- Did you remain inactive for 5 years?

3- What is the nature of today's injury? Is it the same as the old one? [you seem to relate the two quite precisely]

4- There are talks of surgery... that means that (1) it is serious enough that you should listen to your surgeon; did he recommend exercise or physio? and (2) that there may be hope yet to be cured in the future.

Thanks for your response Answers below:

1 - I did not go into it, because the image was quite complex, and I wanted to stick to the point of my question. I had several MRI scans, because they could not find out whether the pain derived from the shoulder or neck. I had chronic pains from the spine and shoulder, and deadening of nerves. The actual diagnostic process took more than 8 months, because for much of the time they believed I was developing multiple sclerosis.  The end result of this process was that they believed it was caused by physical damage from the kettlebell training. But that was just a best estimate of the doctors at the time. According to my physio, kettlebell injuries are becoming quite common - they are a really good training tool if you are already strong in the tendons and joints. But not for strength beginners.

2 - No. I haven't been able to do any type of sports, but I can do slow movements. So I have practiced yoga regularly in the intervening period. Yes, that was five years.

3 - Today my symptoms are very similar, but rather smaller, luckily. I relate them because my shoulder has been sensitive to strain in the intervening period and I tried to work through that. So it seems quite obvious that I provoked my previous injury.

4 - When I came to my doctor now, she noticed my shoulder was hanging, something it also did earlier. After examination, she thought it likely that the tendon of one of the stabiliser muscles in the shoulder had simply snapped off the shoulder bone. The pains then come from instability in the shoulder, which pulls on the spine through the lats and squeezes on the nerves going out to the arm. If this diagnosis is true, it is a major breakthrough, but only ultrasound can confirm that, so let us see. In that case, surgically putting the muscle back on may be a possibility, but I guess that depends on the state of the muscle.

I often think that if just my friend had given my F1 instead of a kettlebell, a lot of things might have developed differently.

EDIT: I will just be clear that my question is not about what to do with the medical conditions, but to receive explicit feedback on the modifications I have made to the program and exercises. Would it be better, for instance, to do ABH with both arms tucked? Or along the sides?

Thank you.

It is still unclear what precisely you are suffering from.

Could you please be more precise?

"...the tendon of one of the stabiliser muscles in the shoulder had simply snapped off the shoulder bone..."

What muscle, what tendon, what bone?

Hi Michael,

first, sorry to hear this situation. I am not a surgeon, neither qualified to give you any advice but this one: I am not sure that training/modifying F1 is the best solution. Five years are long, and if in the next, say, 6 months you can come up with a definitive solution (e.g. surgery) then I'd say it is better to wait before getting 100% into F1.

I think the program assumes an healthy body. It is not by training at 50% with all variants you are forced to introduce that you will see results. In principle, this condition and the induced differentiation between right/left body sides, might indeed in turn generate other problems.

Above all, I wish you all the best. I know what it means to suffer from something for years and have no clear diagnosis.

Thanks, all of you for the advice. Fred, when the diagnostics are more progressed, I will update this topic with more information. I think Federico is right I should be careful, and only do exercises I can perform symmetrically.