Any downsides to training F1 HBP and RC with one arm due to shoulder surgery?

Hi everybody!

 

2 months ago I had my shoulder put under the knife due to overmobility and subsequent multiple dislocations  (more than 30 dislocations in 14 years time).

Cartilage were put back in place and tendons shortened in order to tighten up the whole joint capsule. The surgery was a complete success and my physio-therapist says that I'm ahead of schedule in terms of healing and regaining range of motion.

 

I started training F1 again after I gave it a try during last spring. A lot has happened with me personally and my outlook on training and what I want to do has changed. From being a gym rat and trying to combine weights with GST, I have now solely gone over to GST.

I really love doing the Foundation program again! 

 

I´m on PE1 in all movements and where wondering if I should skip the HBP and RC movements completely until my shoulder is completely healed (estimated to end of June) or can I start doing them with just my left hand?

Is it better to train my good left side now and then when my bad has healed just focus on maintaing left hand strength and bringing the right side up to speed? 

Or is it better (from a strength-imbalance-point of view) to not train these movements at all until I'm fully healed?

Skip the upper body work for now and focus on core and legs until cleared by your physical therapist. Be aware also that shoulders are annoyingly slow to fully recover from surgery. For most daily activities you should be good to go within 8-12 weeks; however it will be 12 months at a minimum to feel reasonable and 2 years to feel good.

Contact forum member Daniel Burnham just completed a similiar healing process himself and will be able to share some personal perspective.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

My advice is to be ultra conservative in these matters. I have had reconstructive surgery to my left shoulder for a bankart lesion and dislocation. My surgeon told me: "No contact sport for twelve months", I'd count strength training in that category.

 

Once you're sure everything is healed up and strong, then you can progress. If you screw of your shoulder from premature work, then you may be screwed for life.

 

My experience with the F and H series is that strength comes relatively quickly, even with an injury like yours, but you are probably going to experience much slower gains in the shoulder mobility department. That's ok, better than having a spontaneously dislocating shoulder, right?

Coach and Ravn, thank you for your answers. Like you Ravn, I too had a bankart kind of atroscopic surgery. My physiotherapist wants to crank up the intensity of my rehab starting thursday next week, but already now this week he has had me doing incline planks on my forearms with serratus push-ups 3-5 reps for 3-4 sets. So I hope that that is a sign that my structures are healing quickly.

 

My surgeon recommend 5-7 months before returning to previous athletic activity, which for me meant historical fencing, hand balancing, dancing and a little bit of weightlifting (since summer I've more or less stopped lifting and focused instead on bodyweight training and movement).

 

But I'll withstand the urge to train the F1 RC, HBP, sPL progressions until July and see how I feel then, and focus on FL, Mn, SLS and SL and of course my shoulder/shoulder girdle rehab/reprogramming!

Since I can't do the weighted windmill mobility work for SL on my right side, is there any other mobility drill I can do, or should I just do the right side unweighted and the left (good) side weighted?

 

Also, I was thinking about complementing with one of the stretch modules. In the Middle Split series, it says that it works toward a handstand press, does that mean that there will be exercises where pressure is put on the shoulder? That would be a bad idea in that case... If so, I'll go for the Front Split series to start with.