Advise: BARELY Start > Shoulder INJURY > 6 wk REST > NOW?

Advise: BARELY Start > Shoulder INJURY > 6 wk REST > NOW?

Its been 6 weeks or so since the the shoulder injury.

I did not even do ANY of the workouts exercises. I had not even done any sets or reps of any FSP or FBE.

I just thought I'd start with assessing my FSP hold times (i.e. 1/2 of max hold time).

I did not even start a single rep of exercise as yet.

I never got to TRY the Workout AT ALL and still was out of commission.

I hate this kinda downtime. I'd hope that I dont have to go through this again and get guided on the right

pre-hab & warmups.

I have done practically no exercise since then. I did do small amounts of light non straining Yoga after 4 weeks when I felt the pain & strain was largely gone.

Can someone please advise me on:

- What to do to assess if my shoulder needs more re-hab & recovery (besides going to the Doc - which I am tomorrow)?

- What kind of re-hab exercises would you recommend?

- What kind of pre-hab / Warmup would you suggest?

- What kind of STARTER workout would you suggest?

I am thinking of staying OFF the rings and work on some standard PRE- BtGB stuff like Pushups, Dips & Pull ups.

Also avoid "major" straining stuff.

Would that be too much to start?

Are there other INITIAL RECOVERING / STRENGTH Building Exercises you'd suggest?

It would really help to have some give me a Guided Plan to avoid injury.

I think you should back off on the 3 common FSP for now.

How many skin the cats can you do?

Focus on HS, inverted hang on rings, and L-sit and L-hang, and maybe the body lever or straddle-L as well.

5x5? No, 5x5 is an intermediate level training regimen. Try 3x5.

If you could do 7 wide arm pullups, I reccomend you do 3 sets of 3 or 4 with enough rest. You may need only 90s, you may need 5m.

I don't teach beginners the FSP really in any directed volume. They learn the positions, we do light holds possibly with a spot They may do negative versions if they have some mastery of the L-sit and skin the cats. Your body is probably not used to the stress of even the basic FSP. You may be able to practice the frogstand, but I'd stay away from the levers.

Instead of the levers, work skin the cats and the body lever.

Play with frogstand, work HS and L-sit and maybe work pushup holds that begin planching. Push your shoulders up (MadCat) and round them rather than letting your scapulas stick out.

For your shoulders, working band or rope dislocates/inlocates would promote flexibility with tension to make your muscles do some work.

Big arm circles, perhaps use a small weight in your hand. 1-3lbs.

And yes, I love the Cuban Press, so maybe give them a go.

Perhaps cat and cows/camel. From yoga. Shoulder shrugs basically in a horizontal plane. Heck, do them in all 3 planes.

Work partial ROM bridge wall walks. Ido shows these in one of his vids. He only goes down to about the sternum or waist instead of to the ground. He also shows a lot of shoulder drills.

Your shoulders are weak. You need to strengthen them. The smart thing for you to do is to work your rotators three times a week, once light(20-30 reps), once medium(10-15 reps), once heavy(4-8 reps). That's internal and external, as well as upper rotation. Large arm circles with medium speed and no weight for warm ups, to get blood flowing and help break up/prevent scar tissue formation. You also need to do some shoulder presses, wall handstand work, multidirectional shrugging, and start working up some basic strength, like bodyweight pushups flat on the floor. If dips don't feel funny, go for them. Same with pullups. You only go until you don't feel any kind of weird feeling in the shoulder.

Shrugging: 1 set standing shrugs, 1 set shrugs in pushup position, 1 set shrugs on dip bar, 1 set shrugs in deadhang position(bottom of the pullup, straight arms), 1 set in feet supported front lever position(your hands should still be directly above your shoulders).

Shrug Techniques: In all cases arms remain perfectly straight throughout the exercise.

Standing: extent hands as far down to the floor as possible, then raise shoulders straight up to try and cover your ears.

Push up: get to the top of the pushup, then push your shoulders towards the floor. THis will cause your upper body to move away from the floor a few inches. Then go back down with straight arms until your shoulder blades are mostly retracted.

Deadhang: with straight arms hang from a pullup bar. Allow your body to hang as low as possible by shrugging your shoulders up to your ears. Without bending your arms, retract your shoulderblades. This will pull you up several inches. If this hurts in regular pullup position, start with a neutral grip. That's palms facing each other. Eventually you'll be ok doing them with a regular grip, if you aren't already.

Dip: Begin at the top of a dip with straight arms. Shrug shoulders up to ears, then push hands down as far to the ground as you can. This will make your body rise several inches.

Feet supported front lever: Get a bench or exercise ball. Hold parallel bars or dip bars with straight arms, and place feet on the bench/ball. Your body now looks like you are lying on your back, in pushup position. With straight arms, try to extend hands towards ceiling. Then with straight arms retract shoulder blades. THis will move you towards the ceiling several inches. THe body must remain perfectly straight at all times. If your core strength is not good enough to do this, then place your calves or knees on the ball/bench instead of heels. This will make it easier to maintain a straight body. It's not very hard to do that, and you should strive to get to heels on the ball as soon as possible if you cannot already. I can not imagine anyone here being unable to use the heels on the ball/bench position.

Rotator work:

search for horizontal external rotation and horizontal internal rotation on youtube and/or google. These will show you videos so you can learn what they are.

upper rotation: This is actually more for the shoulder blades, though it is technically an external rotation exercise. Stand in front of the cable machine, rope attachment. Set Pulley at chest height. Grab each end of the rope with one hand, thunbs facing you(neutral grip. Pull hands to the back of your head at temple height(above the ears). You may or may not get that far back, but go as far back as you can, retracting shoulderblades and shrugging upwards simultaneously. Then allow your arms to straighten in front of you with hands a foot apart. Repeat. Start with light weight. Your elbows will flare out to the side as you pull back.

That's the main stuff. Also, look up Ido Portal's shoulder stuff on youtobe. his username is "portaldo" and he has some excellent band work to help stabilize the scapula.

None of this should be looked at as a fix-it measure. This stuff WILL get you ready to succeed here and heal your injury, but you need to be doing this all the time. It should be a staple of your training. It becomes pre-hab, something you do all the time to prevent injury.