Press/Chins for injured shoulder

[JRC]

Rip,

I’s a 38 y.o. experienced lifter (5+ years), train and compete in powerlifting. I hurt/injured my right shoulder in April, doing some stupid shit (going very heavy on a new movement). The pain is right at the AC joint. The only noticeable symptom, besides pain, is a new crunching sound in my shoulder when I rotate the joint. I took a couple weeks off back on April and have been managing the pain with ice, motrin, compression/wrapping my shoulder. This had allowed me to continue to train heavy, with manageable amount of pain. Recently I have been getting sick of training in pain all the time. Benching hurts, the closer the grip, the more intense the pain, but all grips hurt, cannot do push ups, dips are unbearable. I can press without any pain and ran across this the other day…

http://startingstrength.com/resource...0102#post70102

So I would like to implement your press/chins protocol, and would like to know how to lay it out. Is it just simply TM (vol/light/intensity)? Should I lower the weight, or just go from where I am at? And how would chins fit in there (i.e. 3x week as well)? My goal is to be able to return to powerlifting in 4-5 months. I searched and could not find specifics, and posted in the Recovery forum without any response. Thanks

[Mark Rippetoe]

I can't recommend a rehab protocol for an undiagnosed injury. An MRI will be necessary, I'm afraid.

[matclone]

I've had symptoms similar to JRC and did the same thing--kept training but it got worse. MRI shows small partial tear of rotator cuff (I don't know which part) and AC joint arthritis--probably no surprise for 50+ weighlifter. I was given a diagnosis of right shoulder impingement by ortho doctor. He said surgery wasn't necessary, and gave me an rx for physical therapy and said to lay off barbells. I didn't go back. The pain is still there, although I don't think I lost any strength (until I stopped training). Do you have any suggestions?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Get a Mumford procedure done on the damn thing so you can get back to training.

[Walter Palmer]

I hurt my shoulder on the bench press in April 2011. My ortho and I hoped it was just a strain and I took some time off.

Coach Rippetoe, with very little information provided, asked if there was a sub-acromianal spur. When, after the rest did not take care of it, we did an MRI, and found I had a supscapularis tear (one of the four rotator cuff muscles.

After surgery, it turns out that I had two spurs on the AC joint, the subscap tear, and the need for a biceps tendonisis (common with the subscap).

I'm now back to the weight room for six weeks and think the course of action was absolutely correct. At 49, I was facing a diminished function or the challenge of post-surgery rehab. I made the right choice and now building back to my normal level of weight and looking forward to the Atlanta seminar.

Trust the Coach and have it MRI'd.

[matclone]

Yeah, Rip has been right about a lot of things. I thought that if I were up front and told my doctors that my shoulder hurt and my goal was to get back to lifting weights, they would listen and be helpful. But then I get responses like: no heavy weights (family dr--who thinks weights are all about "beach muscles"), no barbells (ortho), and (incredibly) advice that I do curls as a substitute (family doc and chiro).

[Mark Rippetoe]

The amazing thing about this doctor's advice situation is that there is a single person on earth who thinks a doctor's advice about barbell training is authoritative SIMPLY BECAUSE HE'S A DOCTOR. Would an adult think that a PhD. psychologist would have an authoritative opinion on political philosophy just because she is, after all, a doctor? Barbell training and medicine are related in that they both involve the human body, in the same way that the psychologist and philosophy are related because they both deal with the results of the functioning/malfunctioning mind.

[D.W.]

I think this is related to the tendency that people take no responsibility for their bodies and if something doesn't work or hurts they go to see the doctor to have it fixed. Since weight training or sports in general produces situations when something doesn't work or hurts, they go see the doctor, because they are used to do it that way.
It's even worse when people have some kind of relationship to their doctor, if he is a family friend etc. These people usually do every stupid shit the doc tells them and go apeshit on you if you explain them better methods.