Shoulder issues

Hi 

I'm new to the forum and GST, I'm about 3.5 months into doing foundation 1, and the stretch series. I'm an ex-collegiate football player with a history of heavy weightlifting and Olympic lifting and plenty of injuries. I'm also a chiropractor, I do a lot of myofascial work, so I'm using my arms all day, and that seems to be the biggest factor in the deterioration of my shoulders and my whole body in fact. It seems the prolonged standing and arm work is not good for my body! 

More specifically, I'm dealing with shoulder issues, a reverse bankart lesion, 2 supraspinatus tears, infraspinatus tear, and the impingement that goes along with it in my left shoulder. And due to that impingement in my right shoulder from overuse. Things have been getting better through the proper treatment, rehab and doing the GST work but in extreme moderation. Before the winter break I really aggravated my shoulder to the point of not being able to forward flex at all. This happened after doing thoracic bridges, bridge push-ups, and a weak attempt at hip taps. I felt great doing the push-ups but man did it destroy my shoulders after. Of course I should've known better, but it's challenging for me to not, not ignore discomfort, it's like I was hard wired to push through pain. 

Anyhow, things are on the right path now and I'm listening to my body even if I have the strength to do certain things I'm being extra cautious. 

This week I tried the elevated thoracic bridge and felt no pain while holding it however I did feel afterwards a little pain, and wondering what my next step should be, should I try it again next week or leave it for now.  I'm also curious to know in coaches experience, if as I continue with the program, will I gain the necessary dynamic strength in the rotator cuff, to be able to stabilize my GH joint to perform these movements and hopefully later on handstands etc.  

I really enjoy doing GST and I have found thus far the increase in mobility to be beneficial, and the different type of strength gain as equally beneficial. I always loved body weight work but was never really good at most body weight type stuff. I'm no longer doing any weight training, and I'm looking forward to keeping up with my 5 and 7 year old girls that are in gymnastics ;). 

 

Sorry for for the long post, Coach, thank you for the wonderful, methodical program.

Chris Michailidis

Hey Chris have you ever evaluated a surgery? I think that if you want to do sports safety, and also GB program, you should consider it.

Hi Alessandro,

 

Thanks for your reply.  Yes, I actually was scheduled, but I received a second opinion and he didn't think it was a good idea. Even the first orthopod was not keen on doing the surgery, and he did not really want to do it.  

 

To be honest, the only sport I want to do is gymnastics but only if I'm able to safely. 

 

 

Sorry didn't finish my thought. 

 

So the conclusion was that I was better off not doing the surgery (interestingly, they both did not believe that structural pathology and pain were well correlated, as much research concurs with) and continue to rehab and injections as necessary (not as a means to treat more as a means to open up the window of rehab and strengthening).  

As of right now, surgery is not a consideration in the near future, and I'm hoping that with GST, treatment and rehab I can slowly rebuild the shoulders and body.

i was just wondering if anyone had experience with this type of pathology and continuing with the various aspects of GST.  Has coach or anyone else heard of this type of thing and being able to still do GST. 

Based on the last 3.5 months, I believe there is hope, but just curious. 

If you really have ruptured tendons, get them fixed as soon as possible! Sports is important, but if you want to continue your manual work you need healthy shoulders.

Goos luck!

I've followed for a long time 2 people (2 professional climbers), one of them with a torn superior labrum and bicep tendon rupture and another one with same problem plus subscapularis tear and supraspinatus tear.

I suggested them to consider the surgery, they did it. now they have fully recovered. Surgery is not considered when, in case of tear of one tendon, the other can compensate the problem, but you still have problems also on the other.

 

Thanks for the replies.

At this point, both surgeons I spoke to were not keen on surgery.  They both thought that conservative care was the best option, even with my MRI findings.  They also said it was a 12-18 month process for full recovery, and the first 6 months would be very difficult to do any manual work.  The other fact I had to consider was basically taking 6 months off for the initial recovery. Unfortunately, with 2 mouths to feed, 6 months is financially not feasible. 

So this the situation. I believe if I can better dynamically stabilize my humeral head through the full range of motion things will get better. I recognize as well, that as my lats and pecs improve in mobility, arm motion will come at less cost to the shoulder itself. Hopefully, we'll see. In the meantime I'll take the advice I hear coach sommers gives and that is to take it slow, less is more, and I'll see how far I can get. 

Thank you for your input, and I welcome any more.