deadlifting and shoulder impingement

[isis]

For as long as I can remember I've had an anterior pelvic tilt, until the last couple of months when I've found that deep heavy squatting levels out my pelvis. For a couple of days, anyway, then it comes back until I squat again, but a couple of days is all the pelvic levelness that deep tissue massage ever got me, and squatting is so much less expensive, inconvenient and painful than deep tissue massage. So, thanks Coach.

I am now just realizing that another one of the major exercises is helping another one of my orthopedic problems. For as long as I can remember my right shoulder has been less flexible reaching up my back than the other one, and prone to getting sore for no obvious reason. I really aggravated it earlier this year and saw an orthopedic surgeon who diagnosed me with posterior capsule tightness leading to impingement and bursitis. He said it looked like what baseball pitchers get from too much throwing (but I never played baseball). He prescribed me PT, where I learned some stretches, which have been helpful, and some exercises, which as far as I can tell were designed to keep me sore enough to keep coming back to PT until my insurance ran out. Fortunately for me that happened quickly.

The PT thought it was actually biceps and supraspinatus tendinitis instead of bursitis but either way my symptoms were crunchiness and pain from reaching for anything over shoulder height. Doing the PT's stretching program has made it manageable and I find I can do the overhead press if I warm up, thoroughly stretch, and roll on a tennis ball on the outside edge of my scapula. And concentrate on form and stretch and roll more between sets. At least most days--some days my shoulder just says no thank you to the press no matter how much I stretch. Anyway I'm up to 30 pounds, after starting with a broomstick, and making slow progress. Bench press doesn't bother the shoulder and my bench is at 70 pounds, up from 20.

The point of this story is that my deadlift has gotten heavy--160 lbs (I'm female, 42, 140 lbs) and after my last two deadlift workouts my shoulder has felt amazing, which is to say normal and pain and crunch free, for two days. But I'm only deadlifting once every two weeks and there's no way I could deadlift every two days and recover. So I have been reading your section of BBT about partial deadlift movements, even though I know you don't recommend them for novices. But if I keep the weight under my deadlift workout weight, and the reps low, and use these exercises to look for the part of the deadlift that fixes my shoulder, do you forsee me having problems? Or maybe you have other suggestions for my shoulder issue.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'd say that if the deadlift is helping the shoulder through some mechanism (that neither I nor you, and most assuredly not the PT, understands), then you need to keep doing them, and doing them more frequently will help enough to justify using them in a way not usually employed in a novice progression. I'd do them every other workout, and alternate between your normal heavy set of 5 and a lighter workout of 3 sets of 5 with about 85% of the heavy day weight. And I'd press every workout too, using the weights you need to use to make this possible. If the bench press doesn't bother the shoulder, chances are it's not going to make it heal either, so I'd cut it back to every third workout for a while, done after you press.