The Struggle is Real
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But one thing .... saw my doc this week, and she's really unhappy with me doing anything overhead (i.e., lat pulldowns) because I do have a rotator cuff injury. What can I substitute?????0
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Ugh, pulls are usually the safer side of the shoulder for rotator cuff issues.
Not really another way to engage the lats well, though you could ask about impingement issues and what direction best for hands.
Is your Dr workout minded, or like many ready to just dismiss doing something if potential issue?
Hand grip with thumbs pointing backwards, not towards the head as traditional.
Hands closer together, not stretched out as wide as most lat bars are. Almost shoulder width, like for benching.
In front of head, never behind, for bar path. Should be case anyway.
May even make arm angle half way between a straight down and row, like 45 degree if that makes sense - still engages the lats, as well as back.
But, if any of the pulling hurts, nope.
Most upper body compound moves use the shoulder girdle, hard to find isolated that won't.0 -
@heybales, actually, she's very proactive on lifting weights and eating appropriately and all the things we're working on here, as well as very athletic in her own life. I did promise, if nothing else, not to increase the weights on the pulldowns and stay where I am for a while so as not to hurt it any further, and if ANYthing hurts, to stop!! I'll talk with the trainers at the gym as well and see what they recommend.0
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The things I mentioned are all the ways to minimize impingement BTW, based on my experience and research years ago on torn rotator cuff I had surgery on.1
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I had to give up everything overhead for the past year due to my rotator tear. Honestly, its not worth it. If you have pain lifting anything overhead, it is best to stop doing it. Only now I have been cleared to bring it all back in, and Im still taking it really slow.
Things my physiotherapist had me do as we started improvement with the tear, were lateral raises with a band, internal/external rotations, wall pushups, and a whole bunch of stretches. For where my tear is my main problems were anything overhead. I was still able to do barbell rows, dumbell rows, and as things started healing, chest press and chest flies. These are things that will still encourage shoulder movement, but (for me) didnt cause further injury or issues.
In the grand scheme of things, backing off of shoulder work is not going to set your progress back any.. but continuing to push through an injury with a rotator issue CAN cause some serious problems if something happens. I took what was just inflammation with my shoulder two years ago... didnt listen and ended up tearing it, which set me back another year.. So make sure you think about repercussions of working through this kind of injury. The shoulder is so unstable, it can be torn with the slightest of movements. So tread with caution.
Kelly
Team EM2WL2 -
The thing is, it doesn't HURT. I think she may just be overcautious. What DOES hurt is my left knee (I know, a whole different issue). She examined that when I was in last week said there didn't appear to be any serious damage (I twisted it pivoting to sit down, how's that for stupid easy?) but she thinks it may have sheared off just a tiny scrape of the bottom of the cartilage. Says it will eventually smooth itself out, but if it gets worse or doesn't get better to let her know. And don't go quite so deep on the leg presses until it clears up. So I'm working around that and the extremely tight IT band on that side. I tell ya, gang, I'm just falling apart in my old age!!! But I'm going to keep at this! I'm seeing some shifting and feeling better, and that's the big thing. Plus I'm down 3 pounds!!!4
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Wow .... I've obviously been busy. Monthly weigh and measure .... both are unchanged. We've been busy in the yard, etc., and doing the weight workouts. I'm wondering if maybe I need a smidge more calories? I'm topping out at about 2100 to 2200 fairly consistently, but some days when I'm gardening I see on the fitbit that it says I've used considerably more calories than I've taken in. And I know it doesn't properly count the lifting. So maybe I need to add? Team? What say ye?0
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Are you doing more than you were 6 weeks ago?
Merely reflect on that.
You probably know very easily - and you really need to be able to discern that anyway - because it goes both directions.
Keep eating at summer activity levels going into winter - and like vast majority you'll gain fat.
Oh - if you want Fitbit to be more accurate - manually log your lifting as Weights.0 -
Thats why its important to take your average for the week/month, rather than look at the day to day. If you are averaging a certain amount on fitbit, and you know its not including your weight training, then you know right there your TDEE is higher than fitbit tells you, so yes, increasing your cals is needed.
Kelly
Team EM2WL0 -
Thats why its important to take your average for the week/month, rather than look at the day to day. If you are averaging a certain amount on fitbit, and you know its not including your weight training, then you know right there your TDEE is higher than fitbit tells you, so yes, increasing your cals is needed.
Kelly
Team EM2WL
Working on that!!!!0 -
I do a lot of gardening and yard work in the summer.
I either eat more to compensate (tend to be much hungrier anyway because of the increase in activity) or I use part of it to make a natural deficit so I can cut in the summer months.
It's natural cycles for me to cut in the summer then maintain/bulk in the winter.
It's so much easier when you can lean into your lifestyle rather than fight against it!
Ichel
Team EM2WL2 -
empressichel wrote: »I do a lot of gardening and yard work in the summer.
I either eat more to compensate (tend to be much hungrier anyway because of the increase in activity) or I use part of it to make a natural deficit so I can cut in the summer months.
It's natural cycles for me to cut in the summer then maintain/bulk in the winter.
It's so much easier when you can lean into your lifestyle rather than fight against it!
Ichel
Team EM2WL
Now THAT makes perfect sense. I'm really struggling with eating enough lately, even though the weekly scale is still high and it's not time to measure again (1st of the month). Some of the reasons are:
A: I'm just not hungry.
B: There are not enough hours in the day to eat all it appears I should.
C: KNOWING and DOING are two totally different things.
It's soooooooo counterintuitive for me to FORCE myself to eat. Makes me feel all wrong and cranky.
E: I'm afraid that when I say I'm lifting, y'all are thinking HEAVY WEIGHTS, and it's not, really. You've seen what I've posted, so you know it's not like I'm deadlifting my body weight or anything like that. So do I REALLY burn that much in a 30-minute session? I just don't know.
Started a new job last week, so I'll be less sedentary, and hopefully my stress hormones will decrease as well, because while it's a more detailed job, the environment is MUCH better. And we have a week of vacation scheduled in June, which I'm dreading, because it means hearing from my family that it looks like I'm gaining weight .... blah, blah, blah ....
So bottom line is all this is making me hate me right now, and I really can't afford to hate me. I'm aware this all sounds a little garbled, and I'm sorry for that, it's just bubbling out in whatever order it floats into my head and then to my fingertips.
All that said ..... time to get our gym shoes and head for the weights!!! Thanks for letting me VENT!!!!!!!0 -
Good venting - anytime!
You hate the situation, not you. Without any comments the situation could be without any issues and totally pleasant. Stand tall and strong and confident as you should be for what you've accomplished - that many times fools people anyway from commenting.
Heavy lifting is relative to your training and experience and amount of muscle.
Some just starting could do 3 sets x 15 reps of just their body weight in squats, be dying at the end, and hurt tomorrow.
Just like someone more experienced could do 2x their body weight for same sets & reps.
If rests is about the same 2-4 min between sets, then each is burning about 3.5 x their BMR in calories. (per min amount)
Which really isn't that much in comparison to say cardio. That's a good strong walk calorie burn.
And if it was easy for the 2nd person - guess who got the better workout and actually burned those calories?
Now - eventually those body weight squats will get easy.
If you keep doing those exact sets/reps, now it becomes a waste of time really and burns less calories, no pressure on your body at all.
If you lose weight and keep it up - now you'll lose strength lifting even less.
Progressive is the requirement for improvement - must be progressing in reps or weight, or little of both.0 -
Hope the new job works out well.
Heavy is relative. What feels heavy to me would be light to the next person and so on.
As long as you are progressing. Are you lifting more than you were 6 months ago? Then that is heavy, for you!
I purposefully don't post what I lift because comparison is the thief of joy!
Just do you. Track your weights and keep pushing to make progression.
And periodisation is everything!
http://eatmore2weighless.com/periodization-key-preventing-plateaus/
Ichel
Team EM2WL1
