Hi all, it has been a while. I hope everyone is doing well this summer.

Back in February I decided to add Incline Bench to my program. Probably not the best idea in retrospect, but on the last rep of the 3rd set of 8 (at only about 60% of what I could flat bench for 5, just to keep it light), right before the concentric phase I felt (and heard) a couple loud cracks/pops in my shoulder, immediately lost strength on that side, panicked and needed to use my spotter to help me not drop the bar on my throat. Anyway what followed was emergency room, MRI diagnosis a few days later, and then surgery a couple weeks later.

In March I had arthroscopic surgery to repair the ruptured supraspinatus tendon, which went pretty well except for a couple of the anchors breaking off on my bones (I drink a lot of milk, what else can I say?). Since it was torn (ruptured?) a couple cm away from the insertion point in not the best spot, the repair involved cutting the tendon a little shorter and re-fastening it to the bone if I understood correctly. Post OP the surgeon told me that the supraspinatus OP went well, but during the invasion he noticed that my biceps tendon has some scarring and deformation and also did not look great, although he chose not to mess with it during the OP (could be the result of a past injury which I never treated).

Since March I have been recovering with 2x weekly physical therapy and I completed a 4-week Reha program which focused on movement/ROM and some very, very light weights.

Despite all that, I still cannot get my affected arm behind my back. Although over the past 8 weeks I have made progress of about 1-2 inches further, so it is an extremely slow progress to get the full ROM back. Also last week I did my first Press (with the woman's bar and no added weights) and was able to get 3 sets of 10 done. At the top, however. I looked up and saw that the bar is not straight from L to R, which is kind of concerning me and probably should get corrected before I try adding any weight, yes?

Basically I have been going back to the gym but find myself doing a bunch of gym bro isolation exercises due to the current limited ROM and fear of reinjury if I try to lift any weights in the bench or press. Last week the surgeon telling me to wait another 6 months to start adding weight (or I am at serious risk of re-injuring myself) is not exactly adding to my confidence, since there is no way I would ever like to repeat the past 6 months of my life!!

My questions for the experts are:

In your opinion, does it really make sense (in terms of risk of reinjury) to listen to this guy and wait another 6 months (!) to start adding 5 lbs (or even less) each workout (to at least the press and bench; squats are not possible due to missing ROM so I am doing leg press, not even high-bar atm.) OR is this just a typical surgeon who is just being overly careful at my expense? The guy seems nice enough and it is hard to believe that he is bullshitting me about this, and I would hate to start NLP training only to have him say 'I told you so' in 3 weeks after I reinjure the same spot. But on the other hand, at some point I really would like to start building some of my strength back and waiting 6 more months (on top of the almost 6 it has been already) seems very extreme to me (although I am not a doctor, obviously ).

Thanks for any advice.