SS and bad shoulders

[blues]

Start with 3 sets, then add sets if necessary or as tolerated.

Thank you, sir. I'm going to be incorporating this shortly.

[Steven_NC]

I'm not sure of the actual clinical diagnosis. Cortisone cleared the first one. I wish I had gone in earlier. The surgeon cleaned up the second after 2 rounds of cortisone failed to help. PT for a few months after each. This was 2 years ago. Neither shoulder is back to 100% if they ever were. Anything with the elbow above the plane of the shoulder is unstable. I am struggling to get to low-bar position for squats. I haven't been in the gym for 30+yrs so mobility and joint flexibility is a work in progress. I'm only 6 weeks into SS. I am hoping continued training helps.

[57bergstrm]

I had a frozen shoulder maybe ten years ago. Could not get my arm up to horisontal plane. It was before me knowing about SS. I continued to do my gym bro stuff. Could do very light bench, it took me around 18 month to recover. I still have some problem, but my PT who tested me, says Im ok from his point of wiew. I cant do lowbar squat the usual way so I use straps, and it works fine. I still have some issues sleeping because of stiffness and pain in the shoulder. I can press and have a normal life. So got maybe 95% funktion.

[blues]

Start with 3 sets, then add sets if necessary or as tolerated.

Used your advice for 3 sets of 3 today on my presses and it felt great. I'll add a pound or two next Thursday and see how long I can keep the LP going. (This advice came at just the right time as I was just beginning to incorporate some intermediate techniques on the press but now I'll hold off until necessary.)

Thanks, Rip.

[Charlie Davies]

I was told "frozen shoulder" and "adhesive capsulitis" were the exact same thing. Very painful.

Mine went away w/o treatment in about 18 months, leaving me mostly pain-free in the shoulder joint but only able to raise my left arm to the side to about 120 degrees (vs 180 on the good shoulder).

I resumed lifting with front squats (using straps) and landmine presses. Conventional deadlifts and bench were within my reduced ROM.
With lifting & stretching I've gotten most of the ROM back and can press, chin and high bar squat. My presses are a little bit asymmetric at lockout.

[blues]

Start with 3 sets, then add sets if necessary or as tolerated.

Used your advice for 3 sets of 3 today on my presses and it felt great. I'll add a pound or two next Thursday and see how long I can keep the LP going. (This advice came at just the right time as I was just beginning to incorporate some intermediate techniques on the press but now I'll hold off until necessary.)

Thanks, Rip.

Coach, a quick question based upon the advice you gave above for us "older" guys (60+) to utilize three sets of 3 reps with the press.

Would you recommend this same set / rep prescription for the bench as well? Any other movements?

As I mentioned above, I found it useful to break through a sticking point on the press this past week which is why I ask if it could be similarly utilized on the bench.

Thanks in advance. Since I stopped the "exercise lifting" I'd been doing for the past few years and began using the SS / Barbell Prescription methodology last September, I've seen great progress in both strength and in the mirror as well.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I use 3s on bench, squat, and deadlift, 5 on partial presses out of the rack.

[blues]

I use 3s on bench, squat, and deadlift, 5 on partial presses out of the rack.

Thanks, Coach. That's great info to keep in the toolkit and very timely advice.

[David Oliver]

The solution to my own shoulder woes, learned the only way learning really works - trial, error, adjust/adapt, repeat - is what led me here. I had been doing far too many high rep-to-failure bench presses (decline, flat, incline) and eventually developed shoulder pain and some loss of function. The doctor recommended an injection and physical therapy but opined that surgery was likely in my future. A trainer recommended a bunch of light dumbbell exercises.

I'm a lawyer and in my early years of learning how to work up and try cases I defended a lot of workers comp cases (back when they were routinely tried in Texas district courts). It didn't take me very long to recognize a pattern in the outcomes of low back cases. The shockingly common progression was from muscle relaxers and rest to laminectomy/foraminotomy to fusion to a back salvage procedure and total and permanent impairment. Shoulders didn't produce the same terrible outcomes (perhaps because they're not needed to hold us upright) but surgery on them rarely produced the outcomes promised by the surgeons. I'd majored in chemistry so naturally went to the literature to see if anyone had ever done an experiment to see whether facilitating atrophy (apologies for the sarcasm) actually helped. To my surprise nobody had; but flash forward a couple of decades plus to the time my shoulders began to hurt and the hypothesis had been tested repeatedly. It turns out that laying on the sofa and popping muscle relaxers is "ineffective" and physical therapy only marginally better. So, I opted for the dumbbells.

None of the weird, contorted, 5lb dumbbell exercises worked and I always felt like a one-winged chicken trying to figure out how to fly. Anxious to avoid the needle, the knife and stupid exercises I decided to do my own experiment and pretty quickly discovered by varying my grip that I could press a barbell without discomfort - something that I couldn't do on the seated press machine. Intrigued, I tried the same thing on the bench and in that case a slight decline and narrow grip did the trick. Now all I needed was somebody to tell me what to do next.

A search of PubMed revealed that there's really no good research on barbell training (or any sort of lifting for that matter). There are published papers to be sure but they suffer from the same poor statistical methodology that precipitated the unfolding crisis in biomedical science (most researchers and peer reviewers grossly misunderstand concepts like statistical significance and confidence intervals and many of those who do understand them exploit the ignorance of others in order to publish BS). Luckily for me, while putting together citations and arguments for a motion to exclude opposing counsel's expert because his statistical inferences were fatally flawed I came across an approach advanced by Nassim Taleb that I thought might be persuasive. Following the threads of his argument I was surprised to find the deadlift, press, etc. and what their presence there implied for common beliefs about the purpose of strength.

Now I had never deadlifted and in fact had never even seen anyone do it. Furthermore, despite being well marinated in skepticism of doctors' intuitions I was pretty sure they were correct in assuming that this wasn't something a sensible 58 year would attempt. Then again at my age I'd had a ringside seat for elderly family members' fight with frailty and the psychological toll it took so I bought SS 3d and decided to give it a go. As you already knew, by focusing on form I managed not to shoot any intervertebral discs out of my back and through the wall when I finally attempted it (I had my wife standing by just in case). Weeks later here I sit on a cold, wet and dreary day in my part of Texas writing this overlong "Thank You" note. Tomorrow I'll go up another 5 on the press and 10 on the rest.

It probably won't be much longer before the slope of my personal progress curve isn't as steep (245 on tomorrow's deadlift, 115 on the press w/o any pain) but I feel great (though I confess to having received a sharp reminder from my shoulder last weekend upon attempting a long pass to my youngest son that the press isn't a cure-all); and it's fun to be getting stronger again. Thanks.