Member
Starting strength after clavicle surgery
Four months ago I had clavicle surgery on my left side to repair a broken collar bone. My surgeon said that I can resume weight-training. Prior to the injury, I didn't really have a solid program, and I have been trying to follow Starting Strength.
I can do all the exercises just fine except for the standing military press because my left shoulder can't support anywhere near the same weight as my right one at the moment. With dumbbells, I can do 15 on the left side and 45 on the right in a set of 5. Problem is with dumbbells I'm not getting the same benefits as the barbell press and can't increase the weights slowly.
My question is this: should I keep doing separate dumbbell weights or should I just substitute another exercise completely (such as doing bench press for both A and B workouts)?
TMPHBITEU
Use a light weight on the barbell press, whatever you can do with the barbell. This makes the weak shoulder work in the right mechanics, allows the strong shoulder to help a little, and drives the system towards balanced rehab as opposed to formally establishing an asymmetry.
Member
If I may add to what Rip said, make sure you are doing a very thorough warm up for your shoulders & FORM. Form, form, form. Make damn sure your elbows are pointed forward in the manner described in SS. Those 2 things made a huge difference for me following my rotator cuff surgery just over a year ago. I started out struggling with the bar on my bad side when I was cleared to start adding resistance to my shoulder work (April) and I put 225 over head yesterday.
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