8 Months Of Being Injured What Finally Helped

After 8 months spending with some pretty messed up shoulders I finally solved the issue and am able to train properly again. I decided I'd share what has helped me the most in hopes that it will help others. Scroll down to "My Routine" if you don't want to read the boring history and so on stuff.

I first injured my right shoulder doing a wide arm handstand without warming up and felt something snap (I am familiar with a tearing sensation after tearing my wrist tumbling). My left shoulder was a gradual thing and it specifically got aggravated with shoulder depression.

I tried everything for these two injuries more mobility work, doctors, laying off all work for a month in a half, strengthening the rotator cuff, doing a bunch more retraction. Nothing helped actually quite the opposite my shoulders kept getting worse. At it's worse I couldn't lift my right arm above horizontal level, left shoulder couldn't be protracted or depressed AT ALL without significant pain and even pushups hurt like somebody was taking a meat grinder to all the muscles in them.

MRI didn't show much except a possible tear in the right shoulder for my labrum but doctor couldn't be sure, wanted to do an exploratory scope surgery and fix the problem once he found it. I kindly said no thanks. Nobody offered much this entire time in terms of what was wrong with the left shoulder, nothing was torn or severely messed up from what they could asses.

Since they kept getting worse I finally decided to design a routine just around rehab, mobility and strength training only the traps. I also orders Kelso's Shrug book to get some ideas on isolation work on traps (really wasn't expecting to find anything new).

My routine (This was my rehab routine I would reduce the sets for prehab work). Here is what I came up with:

Mobility work ONLY through pain free ranges of motion - 3 sets of 20. (For a prehab routine I'd recommend 1 set of 15-20)

Here is a video of what I did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Ku8YPEIJ8

My range of motion was greatly reduced, from what is shown in the video to stay out of the painful ROM. You might ask why no shoulder dislocates or wall slides well the answer to that is simple: there was no way my shoulders could do anything of the sort without feeling like something was tearing inside.

Rotator Cuff. Same thing, the number are from my rehab routine. For prehab I recommend 2 sets of 12-15 instead of 3 sets of 20. 

Adducted External Rotations - 3x20 and Abducted Internal Rotations - 3x20 - I didn't do these to strengthen the rotator cuff as I've already said that previously that accomplished nothing. The goal was to just pump as much blood into the rotator cuff as possible. 

Protraction in pushup position - 3x20 - Same thing I wasn't trying to strengthen anything here just blood flow. (For prehab I do 2 sets of 12-15)

Dip Shrugs - 3x20 - Found out a possible cause for my depression and protraction issue, subclavius. This seemed like a good exercise to get it with.

*The protraction and dip shrugs were done with just bands first as I could not protract or depress my shoulder with body weight without pain.

Traps. For prehab I still do the same sets and reps but the frequency is reduced to once or twice per week. 

Wide Grip Barbell Shrugs - 3x8-12 - Pretty standard trap exercise.

Kelso Shrug - 3x8-12 - Basicly a bent over row position without bending your arms just retract the shoulder blades. I replaced face pulls with this exercise as per the advice given in the Kelso's Shrug Book. He laughs at facepulls for retraction strengthening, I now agree

That's what I did 3 times per week. In about 3 weeks my mobility improved to the point where I could do handstands again and pain free so I added those in. Another 2 weeks and my shoulders went from being a 9 (in terms of how messed up they were) to a 2-3. And now there are almost completely pain free and I am back to training. Also my traps now actually stand out on my back.

I am still doing my warm up routine with mobility work and "blood flow" exercises, except now I do 1 set of 20. I am also greatly committed to improving my trap strength and my next goal is a 300 lbs. on Barbell shrugs and the Kelso shrug.

Hey man, that's f-ing excellent. Seriously.

When you keep the scaps against the wall during the abducted internal rotations, you're forcing subscap to work. It's common for it to become inactive, with teres major taking over the internal rotation. This will cause forward translation in the socket, as well as impingement, both of which are prevented by subscap doing its job. Just a little more background so you know more about what you were accomplishing!

The constant use of the rotators will change activation thresholds, making them easier to recruit. Their strength is worthless if the body doesn't use them fully

With the shrugs, make sure you feel the rotator cuff muscles working! This should also help with proper trap activation. it does for me.

If you do this routine, along with regular strengthening work for the rotators, 5-6 days per week you'll be pain-free and able to compete at maximum strength forever as long as you stick with it, even if you have labral tears.

if you stop, and there is a tear, you'll start feeling symptoms again within 2 weeks. They will quickly recede as you get back into the routine.

Once we have problem shoulders, this stuff just becomes a part of daily life! As long as it is, there are no problems with the shoulders

Once again, excellent work putting together an intelligent routine!

And... good observation about the face pulls They are good for testing how well you use your external rotators and traps synergistically, but face pulls will never be a strength exercise. They aren't worthless, but they're a crap choice if your goal is retraction strength.

What are you doing your Kelso shrugs with now?

Joshua Naterman said:

Hey man, that's f-ing excellent. Seriously.

 

When you keep the scaps against the wall during the abducted internal rotations, you're forcing subscap to work. It's common for it to become inactive, with teres major taking over the internal rotation. This will cause forward translation in the socket, as well as impingement, both of which are prevented by subscap doing its job. Just a little more background so you know more about what you were accomplishing!

 

The constant use of the rotators will change activation thresholds, making them easier to recruit. Their strength is worthless if the body doesn't use them fully

 

With the shrugs, make sure you feel the rotator cuff muscles working! This should also help with proper trap activation. it does for me.

 

 

 

If you do this routine, along with regular strengthening work for the rotators, 5-6 days per week you'll be pain-free and able to compete at maximum strength forever as long as you stick with it, even if you have labral tears.

 

if you stop, and there is a tear, you'll start feeling symptoms again within 2 weeks. They will quickly recede as you get back into the routine.

 

Once we have problem shoulders, this stuff just becomes a part of daily life! As long as it is, there are no problems with the shoulders

 

Once again, excellent work putting together an intelligent routine!

 

And... good observation about the face pulls They are good for testing how well you use your external rotators and traps synergistically, but face pulls will never be a strength exercise. They aren't worthless, but they're a crap choice if your goal is retraction strength.

 

What are you doing your Kelso shrugs with now?

Thanks. I knew about the subscap activation as it is a none loaded version of the subscapularis strengthening exercise (although I believe I found a better alternative for strengthening). 

Your statement about activation thresholds makes perfect sense to me, as now I feel like the rotators are actually doing something when I do all my other work. 

Yeah I don't plan on stopping doing any of these exercises any time soon haha.

I am not sure how much weight I am moving with the Kelso Shrug as I am using bands because I am limited to the equipment I have in the basement at the moment and if I use the barbell in the bent over row position my lower back gives out before my upper back does. I just loop a band in a doorknob and do one armed Kelso shrugs with about a 45 degree horizontal abduction at the shoulder. They are powerlifting bands from elitefts.com but I don't have the tension numbers. 

Nice. I just got some bands as well, from Body Bands. They have the best prices I've found, and I'm pretty excited. Next step is to build a squat platform for my power rack so I have a place to hook my bands for adding band resistance to the squat. Going to give Westside squat training a go for about 6 months, assuming everything goes well, just to see how it works out.

Slizz, you're like the Consumer Reports of GB.  

amazing, I will try the routine in addition to ido portal mobility and scapular routine and report bavk...my shoulders are not injured but definately feel crapy with lots of clicking and poping noises

spyro7800 said:

amazing, I will try the routine in addition to ido portal mobility and scapular routine and report bavk...my shoulders are not injured but definately feel crapy with lots of clicking and poping noises

I would love to hear about your results. 

Joshua Naterman said:

Nice. I just got some bands as well, from Body Bands. They have the best prices I've found, and I'm pretty excited. Next step is to build a squat platform for my power rack so I have a place to hook my bands for adding band resistance to the squat. Going to give Westside squat training a go for about 6 months, assuming everything goes well, just to see how it works out.

Sounds like fun. Tell us how it goes 

Constructicon weekend coming up

Seems like an excellent prehab routine... I will have to try this out tonight!  I am curious though: where do the exercises demonstrated in the video fit in with the program described in writing?

A.J. said:

Seems like an excellent prehab routine... I will have to try this out tonight!  I am curious though: where do the exercises demonstrated in the video fit in with the program described in writing?

Its the first thing in the routine. So I do the things in the video before anything else. I guess I should have been more clear when I wrote it up but the order that I wrote everything in is the order I do them in. 

I would also not recommend doing as many sets as I did for a prehab routine, that was my rehab routine. For prehab I do the same thing (same order) just one set instead of 3 on mobility stuff, two sets of rotator cuff stuff and same sets just not as often on the trap stuff. The trap stuff I do as my part of my regular workout. 

I've edited my original post in an attempt to make it all clearer. 

Cheers - thanks for the info!

AlexX said:

After 8 months spending with some pretty messed up shoulders I finally solved the issue and am able to train properly again. I decided I'd share what has helped me the most in hopes that it will help others. Scroll down to "My Routine" if you don't want to read the boring history and so on stuff.

I first injured my right shoulder doing a wide arm handstand without warming up and felt something snap (I am familiar with a tearing sensation after tearing my wrist tumbling). My left shoulder was a gradual thing and it specifically got aggravated with shoulder depression.

I tried everything for these two injuries more mobility work, doctors, laying off all work for a month in a half, strengthening the rotator cuff, doing a bunch more retraction. Nothing helped actually quite the opposite my shoulders kept getting worse. At it's worse I couldn't lift my right arm above horizontal level, left shoulder couldn't be protracted or depressed AT ALL without significant pain and even pushups hurt like somebody was taking a meat grinder to all the muscles in them.

MRI didn't show much except a possible tear in the right shoulder for my labrum but doctor couldn't be sure, wanted to do an exploratory scope surgery and fix the problem once he found it. I kindly said no thanks. Nobody offered much this entire time in terms of what was wrong with the left shoulder, nothing was torn or severely messed up from what they could asses.

Since they kept getting worse I finally decided to design a routine just around rehab, mobility and strength training only the traps. I also orders Kelso's Shrug book to get some ideas on isolation work on traps (really wasn't expecting to find anything new).

My routine (This was my rehab routine I would reduce the sets for prehab work). Here is what I came up with:

Mobility work ONLY through pain free ranges of motion - 3 sets of 20. (For a prehab routine I'd recommend 1 set of 15-20)

Here is a video of what I did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Ku8YPEIJ8

My range of motion was greatly reduced, from what is shown in the video to stay out of the painful ROM. You might ask why no shoulder dislocates or wall slides well the answer to that is simple: there was no way my shoulders could do anything of the sort without feeling like something was tearing inside.

 

Rotator Cuff. Same thing, the number are from my rehab routine. For prehab I recommend 2 sets of 12-15 instead of 3 sets of 20. 

Adducted External Rotations - 3x20 and Abducted Internal Rotations - 3x20 - I didn't do these to strengthen the rotator cuff as I've already said that previously that accomplished nothing. The goal was to just pump as much blood into the rotator cuff as possible. 

Protraction in pushup position - 3x20 - Same thing I wasn't trying to strengthen anything here just blood flow. (For prehab I do 2 sets of 12-15)

Dip Shrugs - 3x20 - Found out a possible cause for my depression and protraction issue, subclavius. This seemed like a good exercise to get it with.

*The protraction and dip shrugs were done with just bands first as I could not protract or depress my shoulder with body weight without pain.

Traps. For prehab I still do the same sets and reps but the frequency is reduced to once or twice per week. 

Wide Grip Barbell Shrugs - 3x8-12 - Pretty standard trap exercise.

Kelso Shrug - 3x8-12 - Basicly a bent over row position without bending your arms just retract the shoulder blades. I replaced face pulls with this exercise as per the advice given in the Kelso's Shrug Book. He laughs at facepulls for retraction strengthening, I now agree

That's what I did 3 times per week. In about 3 weeks my mobility improved to the point where I could do handstands again and pain free so I added those in. Another 2 weeks and my shoulders went from being a 9 (in terms of how messed up they were) to a 2-3. And now there are almost completely pain free and I am back to training. Also my traps now actually stand out on my back.

I am still doing my warm up routine with mobility work and "blood flow" exercises, except now I do 1 set of 20. I am also greatly committed to improving my trap strength and my next goal is a 300 lbs. on Barbell shrugs and the Kelso shrug.

You might want to do a favor and talk to the doctor(s) and tell them how you rehabed. If they are worth their salt they should be interested. Far too often doctors don't get feedback that they need to improve their practices.

Edit: Amazing work btw!!

Some real science gymnastics going on here! Well done!

Thanks for sharing AlexX.

God bless you!

AlexX said:

After 8 months spending with so....

i have a deep shoulder pain, i cant quite touch the painful spot with my finger, that id like to try your routine on but i cant figure a few things out.

could you explain how to do the adducted external and abducted internal rotations?  dip shrugs (this sounds like trap shrugs on a dip station but its not under the trap section)?

were these done in super sets or did you break for each set and exercise?

thanks.

The link is no longer valid, would love to be able to see the routine 

I second that. Been searching all over this forum for a possible routine to help heal my shoulders. If any body has access to a working link of this, kindly post it.

thank you

For injuries is necessary first find the problem with a specialist then buildup strategies.

On 21 November 2012 at 9:30 PM, AlexX said:

After 8 months spending with some pretty messed up shoulders I finally solved the issue and am able to train properly again. I decided I'd share what has helped me the most in hopes that it will help others. Scroll down to "My Routine" if you don't want to read the boring history and so on stuff.

I first injured my right shoulder doing a wide arm handstand without warming up and felt something snap (I am familiar with a tearing sensation after tearing my wrist tumbling). My left shoulder was a gradual thing and it specifically got aggravated with shoulder depression.

I tried everything for these two injuries more mobility work, doctors, laying off all work for a month in a half, strengthening the rotator cuff, doing a bunch more retraction. Nothing helped actually quite the opposite my shoulders kept getting worse. At it's worse I couldn't lift my right arm above horizontal level, left shoulder couldn't be protracted or depressed AT ALL without significant pain and even pushups hurt like somebody was taking a meat grinder to all the muscles in them.

MRI didn't show much except a possible tear in the right shoulder for my labrum but doctor couldn't be sure, wanted to do an exploratory scope surgery and fix the problem once he found it. I kindly said no thanks. Nobody offered much this entire time in terms of what was wrong with the left shoulder, nothing was torn or severely messed up from what they could asses.

Since they kept getting worse I finally decided to design a routine just around rehab, mobility and strength training only the traps. I also orders Kelso's Shrug book to get some ideas on isolation work on traps (really wasn't expecting to find anything new).

My routine (This was my rehab routine I would reduce the sets for prehab work). Here is what I came up with:

Mobility work ONLY through pain free ranges of motion - 3 sets of 20. (For a prehab routine I'd recommend 1 set of 15-20)

Here is a video of what I did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Ku8YPEIJ8

My range of motion was greatly reduced, from what is shown in the video to stay out of the painful ROM. You might ask why no shoulder dislocates or wall slides well the answer to that is simple: there was no way my shoulders could do anything of the sort without feeling like something was tearing inside.

 

Rotator Cuff. Same thing, the number are from my rehab routine. For prehab I recommend 2 sets of 12-15 instead of 3 sets of 20. 

Adducted External Rotations - 3x20 and Abducted Internal Rotations - 3x20 - I didn't do these to strengthen the rotator cuff as I've already said that previously that accomplished nothing. The goal was to just pump as much blood into the rotator cuff as possible. 

Protraction in pushup position - 3x20 - Same thing I wasn't trying to strengthen anything here just blood flow. (For prehab I do 2 sets of 12-15)

Dip Shrugs - 3x20 - Found out a possible cause for my depression and protraction issue, subclavius. This seemed like a good exercise to get it with.

*The protraction and dip shrugs were done with just bands first as I could not protract or depress my shoulder with body weight without pain.

Traps. For prehab I still do the same sets and reps but the frequency is reduced to once or twice per week. 

Wide Grip Barbell Shrugs - 3x8-12 - Pretty standard trap exercise.

Kelso Shrug - 3x8-12 - Basicly a bent over row position without bending your arms just retract the shoulder blades. I replaced face pulls with this exercise as per the advice given in the Kelso's Shrug Book. He laughs at facepulls for retraction strengthening, I now agree

That's what I did 3 times per week. In about 3 weeks my mobility improved to the point where I could do handstands again and pain free so I added those in. Another 2 weeks and my shoulders went from being a 9 (in terms of how messed up they were) to a 2-3. And now there are almost completely pain free and I am back to training. Also my traps now actually stand out on my back.

I am still doing my warm up routine with mobility work and "blood flow" exercises, except now I do 1 set of 20. I am also greatly committed to improving my trap strength and my next goal is a 300 lbs. on Barbell shrugs and the Kelso shrug.

Any chance you could put a link up with the video on? The old link doesn't work. Cheers