RC - PE1 replacement while injured

My scapula got injured around a year and half ago and I had bought foundation some time shortly after. Because of ego I ignored my injury and it made things a lot worse!!!! The injury I had in my scapula went on to affect my shoulder and then surely enough my elbow. It was so painful I couldn't even do pushups on my knees (I was fully capable of doing standard pushups). I've let the ego go now and I have it in my mind that I don't want to progress or get stronger. I want to heal. I've invested my time into that healing process and things are coming along but are not perfect yet. I'm still only on the beginning of foundation on PE1 for nearly everything except HBP (PE2). I love foundation for this reason though, it eliminates all the weaknesses you have and in my case pain becomes this indicator.

Pushups are not a problem anymore, but when I was performing the hinge rows the pain was definitely there. Not too bad while performing the PE, but it did leave my elbow hurting after. Basically, I know I have yet to recover completely natural movement within my scapula and I know this not just through the hinge rows but through other various exercises I perform as physio. Until I recover the natural movement in my scapula I'm sure hinge rows will always be a problem. How should I go about replacing RC PE1? Should I lessen the load (just do them sitting down) to try and condition my scapula or, as I don't have problems with rows, just do rows for now. I've spent a lot of time getting back to where I am now and obviously don't want to regress but at the same time I know my pulling strength has decreased (my arms are even smaller). I'll definitely go back to hinge rows when I'm ready but that I know may still take I'm guessing another 6 months . If I lessen the load of the hinge rows I won't be conditioning my pulling strength at all so that's another factor. I don't want to find out later on that I can't even manage to do 5 pullups, could do 12 strict dead hang before. 

In short, what is the best way to maintain my already decreased pulling strength while following foundation?

Hi Kevin,

Sorry to hear about your scapula. You mentioned performing exercises "as physio". Are you a physiotherapist? As a physical therapist, I have thought of scaled versions of the hinge row a lot because it is such a struggle for me. I look at myself as not being able to complete a proper hinge row, as having an injury. Then,

1) I self diagnose the specific movement impairment that does not allow me to complete end range of the hinge row.

2) I take those impairments (ie... lack of scap retraction or lack of external rotation) and apply one of Coach's higher rep templates with scaled physical therapy exercises on the off days)

3) The routine gradually progresses towards a scaled, seated hinge row as you suggested, with trial of a hinge row if the form is correct, and without pain.

It appears you have concern about your pulling strength. Me too, as I have none. My view is that I need to master the movement dysfunctions that are impairing the hinge row. Only then, I feel, I deserve to work on pulling strength with RC/PE1.

Best of Luck,

Ryan

Ryan Bailey said:

Hi Kevin,

Sorry to hear about your scapula. You mentioned performing exercises "as physio". Are you a physiotherapist? As a physical therapist, I have thought of scaled versions of the hinge row a lot because it is such a struggle for me. I look at myself as not being able to complete a proper hinge row, as having an injury. Then,

1) I self diagnose the specific movement impairment that does not allow me to complete end range of the hinge row.

2) I take those impairments (ie... lack of scap retraction or lack of external rotation) and apply one of Coach's higher rep templates with scaled physical therapy exercises on the off days)

3) The routine gradually progresses towards a scaled, seated hinge row as you suggested, with trial of a hinge row if the form is correct, and without pain.

It appears you have concern about your pulling strength. Me too, as I have none. My view is that I need to master the movement dysfunctions that are impairing the hinge row. Only then, I feel, I deserve to work on pulling strength with RC/PE1.

Best of Luck,

Ryan

Well said.

Dont worry about what you have lost. Fix the dysfunction and you will exceed what you had.

I would do the physio exercises and hinge rows with your buttocks on the ground. As you find these easy start to have less pressure on the buttocks until you reach the full hinge row. This could take up to 12 months to achieve. In the mean time you have plenty of other strength and mobility exercises to work on.

Ryan Bailey said:

Hi Kevin,

Sorry to hear about your scapula. You mentioned performing exercises "as physio". Are you a physiotherapist? As a physical therapist, I have thought of scaled versions of the hinge row a lot because it is such a struggle for me. I look at myself as not being able to complete a proper hinge row, as having an injury. Then,

1) I self diagnose the specific movement impairment that does not allow me to complete end range of the hinge row.

2) I take those impairments (ie... lack of scap retraction or lack of external rotation) and apply one of Coach's higher rep templates with scaled physical therapy exercises on the off days)

3) The routine gradually progresses towards a scaled, seated hinge row as you suggested, with trial of a hinge row if the form is correct, and without pain.

It appears you have concern about your pulling strength. Me too, as I have none. My view is that I need to master the movement dysfunctions that are impairing the hinge row. Only then, I feel, I deserve to work on pulling strength with RC/PE1.

Best of Luck,

Ryan

Thanks for the advice Ryan. I am not a physiotherapist, just attended a lot of sessions lol. I first atttended general physiotherapy at the hospital, then was moved to a class better specialising in the shoulder region and finally after probably 6 months of this was moved to a specialist. The specialist helped me somewhat but unfortunately I had finished uni and had to move back home to London and so only had one session with her. After all this time with individuals who know about this stuff I have yet to see full recovery. At the moment I'm on holiday and so I can't get back to having a specialist until I return. In the meantime though (as this is not my only injury, got two others ) I have looked up some other exercises and what I have always found when there is improvement is that the improvement is caused by one or two good exercises where I feel the muscles being worked unlike on the other side (as the other side is functioning properly). Amazingly enough it usually is the case that I self diagnose myself and with some guess work end up making more progress with my recovery than with the physiotherapists :/. Not what should happen but I keep changing it up once I see the exercise alone is not making any further improvements. I perform these exercises on my off days as you suggested.

Either ways what I have also found with my scapula is that, if I can't perform a exercise correctly, training that specific exercise, even with control and no weight, does not mean that the at some point I will achieve correct movement in the exercise. A brilliant example for me was in H1/PE2 iM. My dysfunctional side would not follow the same path as my correctly working side. Very wonky! After not having tried it for 2 months where I know it was still wonky, the alignment seems to be correct now!! . As I said, my progress is slow but its coming along through a lot of trial and error. But this is why I know that for RC/PE1 the same is true. When performing the movement I can somewhat feel that my scapula is not moving as it should or at times the load feels quite different. As with my many other physiotherapy exercises that I have tried my other muscles have overcompensated attempting to perform the movement correctly. The physiotherapist had noted this and my musculature seems more defined on my bad side, traps are the most noteworthy. This was my major concern with performing hinge rows as even at a lighter load as I know that I will never be correcting the deficiency. Is there much point to performing them then if until I fix the problem I will always be performing them incorrectly?

Mark Collins said:

Well said.

Dont worry about what you have lost. Fix the dysfunction and you will exceed what you had.

I would do the physio exercises and hinge rows with your buttocks on the ground. As you find these easy start to have less pressure on the buttocks until you reach the full hinge row. This could take up to 12 months to achieve. In the mean time you have plenty of other strength and mobility exercises to work on.

Kind words Colin. I'm hell bent on just healing so you're right. I guessed 6 months and you say 12; I know these things take time so I am ok with it . But same question applies here with the hinge rows. What do you think? Every time I've performed this exercise my other muscle groups around my scapula do the work. They shouldn't :/. Oh and my physiotherapy exercises are not sitting down lol (do u know of an exercise that would be good for my problem?). Right now I can be on all fours, or standing and using elastic or thera bands to assist.

Can you post a video of the hinge row. There are far too many exercises for shoulder rehab to give and without assessing you in person I would not know what will benefit you the most.

Good idea Mark.  A video will be excellent.  Mark and others who are also very experienced here on the forum give great advice!  If you post a video, others as well as myself may benefit from the feed back.  As I said before, this hinge row is a struggle of mine.  

Ryan