Small Type 2 SLAP Tear in shoulder

Hi all,

New to the forum but have followed starting strength for a long time.

After MRI scan, I have a Small Type 2 SLAP Tear of the left shoulder, 5mm Tear, everything else being normal. I did this overhead pressing and felt a small pop in the shoulder, no pain.
Doctor/Orthopaedic Surgeon said no surgery, should heal in 2-3 months. He said use it but don't aggravate it. I would just like to know if there are any recommendations for rehabbing the shoulder with this sort of injury. A physiotherapist just said to do small exercises and work the rotator cuff to strengthen it etc. I cant doing any pressing movements without aggravating it a little but can Pull with no issues, although the stress of pulling might still upset it just due to overall stress etc.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Aaron

You did not tear the labrum doing a proper press, as there is no mechanism by which this happens. We'll ask for comments.

I lack the DPT credential, hell I'm not even a lowly PTA or ATC, so maybe you should just ignore me completely. But I also don't see how that could've happened while pressing. My guess is it happened some other way and you just noticed it while pressing.

I had a complete circumferential labral tear in November, 2015 in a total freak accident. It ultimately required surgery, 7 anchors to repair (the surgeon said the usual is 3 or 4), and an acromioplasty. But before the surgery, I was able to get back to almost 100% strength by using the same approach we use for everything else: stress, recovery, adaptation, repeat.

The tear occurred Monday morning. I began pressing an empty PVC pipe on Thursday for high reps (and did single arm work with the healthy side, if nothing else for my mental health). I added a little tiny bit of resistance each day, did it just about every day, and by the time of surgery, had gotten back to a 260 press (my PR at the time, pre-injury, was 265). Almost all the details of this process can be found on my training log on this very site.

I could not bench for about 3-4 months after the injury, and likewise after the surgery. Pressing didn't feel good, per se, I could feel it at lockout for about 2-3 months post injury as I recall. But I knew it wasn't making it worse, and indeed it helped as I was nearly back to full strength before surgery. Long term with such a complete tear, the chance of re-injury was high and I needed the acromial decompression anyway, but if not for those things, I could have probably avoided the surgery altogether simply due to being stubborn and pressing 5-6 days a week for quite a while post injury.

Based on your post, the first place I'd look is your press technique. Make sure that's good and correct - you can do that with video here as well.

If you want to do some isolated stuff to ease your mind, fine with me, go ahead and do your banded external rotation at the end of your normal training. But I'd guess that, at most, you'd take 2-3 days to let the thing calm down, then start pressing with a tolerable weight, and go up from there. Lighter weight and higher reps with higher frequency, all reduced gradually as the weight goes back up towards real working weight.

Wow, thanks Mark and Michael for a quick response :-)
Without giving you a long post to read I just kept it simple for simplicity. I was just wondering what could be the best way to rehab a shoulder, the press? Or small isolated rotator cuff exercises etc?

In regards to how this happened, I'll be perfectly honest. I attended a barbell training workshop in Melbourne (Australia) run by barbell medicine (Tom Campatelli, Jordan Feigenbaum and Leah Lutz) as I thought it was the next best thing to get some coaching around the main lifts etc. While I've always followed the starting strength way of pressing, barbell in heel of hand, floating barbell near chin (not resting on upper chest as I'm tall and is very uncomfortable with my forearm length etc), as this differs from person to person and so forth with the press technique etc. Jordan had me grip the bar in more of my fingers to allow the bar to rest on my chest, that way I could use my body more to accelerate the bar off my chest, this wasn't what I was used to and felt loose, 3/4 of the way up my shoulder popped (partial dislocation) with no pain though. I continued to train for the next few weeks but it just got sore, so I'm thinking the subluxation created a tiny tear which I continued to train and make worse, as I had the MRI weeks after incident. That's the only thing I have done to creat any injury both in and out if the gym. The tear is adjacent to the biceps tendon anchor. I had a few subluxations in my right shoulder when I was younger that eventually required surgery due to a loose capsule etc. I guess I haven't got the best joints :-(. However after training only for strength the last couple of years, and although I partially dislocated it, the joint still feels quit solid I believe due to the strength increases and shoulder strength etc.

Hope that clarifies a few things!
Again, would just like to know if you guys think the press and starting light and building back up is the best way to rehab shoulder etc?

Also Michael, In regards to form checks, where would I find that side of things/post a video of technique?

Many thanks and much appreciated.

Aaron

Shoulder Rehab | Mark Rippetoe