Rotator cuff and exercise alternatives

RoxieDawn

I've had shoulder issues for the better part of this year. Stopped lifting over 3 months ago, went to doc and had MRI. MRI showed no tear, just have tendonitis (I say 'just' but its been a painful ride) and I've have been doing physical therapy. Doc gave me shots in the shoulder as well, feeling pretty good. My shoulder can't handle any pressing or side lateral raises. Started PHUL this week and need to tweak it a bit.

I've been released to lift by my doc but need shoulder exercise alternatives. I've been researching but thought I would ask if any of you have had this and ideas for work arounds?

Goal: I am a few pounds below my cut weight goal, but instead of going into surplus decided to maintain. So recomp for a little while, add in a small surplus a little later on.

jdscrubs32

Hi. I had tendonitis in the left rotator cuff over a year and half ago. I assume both your doc and physical therapist gave you good stretches to do which you should continue to do even after the shoulder feels 100% for overall good shoulder health. The only exercise my physio recommended I shouldn't do was overhead press as he said that exercise is causing a lot of rotator cuff issues and most sport teams no longer include that in workout regime. For bench, do floor press until your shoulder is 100% when you can go back to proper bench. For now stay clear of dips, pull ups, chin ups until your shoulder is 100%. For the likes of rows and if you want to do chest work on the bench, dont go below parallel until your shoulder is 100%. Take it easy, continue to do your stretches and in time your shoulder will be 100% again.

Packerjohn

Landmine press is easier on the shoulder joint than conventional barbell or dumbbells.

RoxieDawn

jdscrubs32 wrote: »

Hi. I had tendonitis in the left rotator cuff over a year and half ago. I assume both your doc and physical therapist gave you good stretches to do which you should continue to do even after the shoulder feels 100% for overall good shoulder health. The only exercise my physio recommended I shouldn't do was overhead press as he said that exercise is causing a lot of rotator cuff issues and most sport teams no longer include that in workout regime. For bench, do floor press until your shoulder is 100% when you can go back to proper bench. For now stay clear of dips, pull ups, chin ups until your shoulder is 100%. For the likes of rows and if you want to do chest work on the bench, dont go below parallel until your shoulder is 100%. Take it easy, continue to do your stretches and in time your shoulder will be 100% again.

Thank you great stuff. Will be doing the pt exercises for long time to come, the pt has been an amazing experience not just for my shoulder but my back/posture improvements as well.

And yes, dips are out for sure probably forever.

RoxieDawn

Packerjohn wrote: »

Landmine press is easier on the shoulder joint than conventional barbell or dumbbells.

I do like the idea of of landmine presses a lot. Thanks..

snowflake954

I've had shoulder issues for 2yrs now. Excruciatingly painful. I found "Ask Dr. Jo" on YouTube and she has wonderful exercises for this and many other problems. My shoulder has a few twinges now and again, but is almost back to normal. It's been slow. Good Luck.

4Pop

Research Self Myofascial Release, as well as internal/external rotations

bigguyreed

You can pick up a book on physical therapy or see a physical therapist (or You Tube). I had a problem myself at one time and I did some exercises that helped. Still no problem many years later, just take your time to heal.

jdscrubs32

RoxieDawn wrote: »

jdscrubs32 wrote: »

Hi. I had tendonitis in the left rotator cuff over a year and half ago. I assume both your doc and physical therapist gave you good stretches to do which you should continue to do even after the shoulder feels 100% for overall good shoulder health. The only exercise my physio recommended I shouldn't do was overhead press as he said that exercise is causing a lot of rotator cuff issues and most sport teams no longer include that in workout regime. For bench, do floor press until your shoulder is 100% when you can go back to proper bench. For now stay clear of dips, pull ups, chin ups until your shoulder is 100%. For the likes of rows and if you want to do chest work on the bench, dont go below parallel until your shoulder is 100%. Take it easy, continue to do your stretches and in time your shoulder will be 100% again.

Thank you great stuff. Will be doing the pt exercises for long time to come, the pt has been an amazing experience not just for my shoulder but my back/posture improvements as well.

And yes, dips are out for sure probably forever.

I wouldnt rule out dips forever. Took me a while to gather the courage to do them again but I made sure to warm up the shoulders really well before I did them and that I did them slow. However listen to your body and you know when its the right time to do them.

mom23mangos

You are probably doing a lot of these already, but this is what I did during my recovery (and still do):

Scapular pull-ups
Scapular push-ups
Scapular retractions/protractions with resistance band
Eccentric Internal rotation with resistance band
W/T/Y band pull-aparts
Face pulls
Inverse Rows
L-sits
Planche leans
Dragon Levers
Front raises - surprisingly these actually helped my pain. Especially if some is coming from coracoid. Try thumb up.

If I remember any others, I'll let you know.

More:
Waiter carries
Weighted ceiling punch (on back)
Weighted dead bugs

kristingjertsen

I had a rotator cuff tear and rotator cuff tendonitis. After surgery and Physical therapy, my doctor's and PT's recommendation was that I shift to lighter weights and avoid lifting weight above shoulder height which I have continued to do. I have also learned to be body conscious during cleaning and home maintenance. Think about the muscles involved in sweeping, mopping, running a vacuum, wiping down bathrooms, tables, or windows, cooking (lifting and shifting pots and pans, loading and unloading the dishwasher, scrubbing dishes, using knives, etc.) yard work, and grocery shopping and you will realize just how often you use your rotator cuff, deltoids, and scapular muscles in daily activities. Overwork can easily trigger tendonitis again, unfortunately, so be aware of your activity level. Keep doing the exercises and stretches your PT taught you to help prevent recurrence.

MikePfirrman

Balance out pushing and pulling too. I had shoulder issues appear when for around a year I was benching without pulling much. I've since taken up rowing and now I've had the opposite issue, too much pulling, not enough benching (pushing). I do think if you lean too heavy toward one or the other, your shoulders start to feel more pain from imbalance.

RoxieDawn

mom23mangos wrote: »

You are probably doing a lot of these already, but this is what I did during my recovery (and still do):

Scapular pull-ups
Scapular push-ups
Scapular retractions/protractions with resistance band
Eccentric Internal rotation with resistance band
W/T/Y band pull-aparts
Face pulls
Inverse Rows
L-sits
Planche leans
Dragon Levers
Front raises - surprisingly these actually helped my pain. Especially if some is coming from coracoid. Try thumb up.

If I remember any others, I'll let you know.

More:
Waiter carries
Weighted ceiling punch (on back)
Weighted dead bugs

Great list. Honestly I have to look a few of these up. I still need something different other than what I tried today cause its still too much for my shoulder... good news pushups were okay.

RoxieDawn

kristingjertsen wrote: »

I had a rotator cuff tear and rotator cuff tendonitis. After surgery and Physical therapy, my doctor's and PT's recommendation was that I shift to lighter weights and avoid lifting weight above shoulder height which I have continued to do. I have also learned to be body conscious during cleaning and home maintenance. Think about the muscles involved in sweeping, mopping, running a vacuum, wiping down bathrooms, tables, or windows, cooking (lifting and shifting pots and pans, loading and unloading the dishwasher, scrubbing dishes, using knives, etc.) yard work, and grocery shopping and you will realize just how often you use your rotator cuff, deltoids, and scapular muscles in daily activities. Overwork can easily trigger tendonitis again, unfortunately, so be aware of your activity level. Keep doing the exercises and stretches your PT taught you to help prevent recurrence.

Thanks so much for this. And re-injury will always be in the back of my mind, hense trying to do things to keep good shoulder health as I am 50 and recovery doesn't get better with age.

mitch16

Your physical therapist isn't able to give you "safe" exercises? I don't have experience with rotator cuff--I've had knee issues--but my physical therapist has been able to tailor my rehabilitation to my personal needs (I'm a wee bit driven and so my rehab is a little more aggressive than an average patient). I'm lucky in that my PT is also a personal trainer and was willing to meet me at the gym to help design my workout around my limitations and the equipment at the gym.

RoxieDawn

mitch16 wrote: »

Your physical therapist isn't able to give you "safe" exercises? I don't have experience with rotator cuff--I've had knee issues--but my physical therapist has been able to tailor my rehabilitation to my personal needs (I'm a wee bit driven and so my rehab is a little more aggressive than an average patient). I'm lucky in that my PT is also a personal trainer and was willing to meet me at the gym to help design my workout around my limitations and the equipment at the gym.

Let me see if I can answer...

My doc doesn't order PT for my injury, I was able to get PT requested and approved by insurance by another doctor so I could start PT even before I saw my ortho. It also helps get an MRI approved. Lots of red tape.

Doc says free to lift within limitations so I was asking for experiences and/or exercises that do not exacerbate injury. Bench pressing, OHP and anything lateral out to the side are my limitations and unfortunately insurance requirements/limitations and of course $$$$ to pay for outside physio of which I don't think is not necessary for me.

CowboySar

I have shoulder issues myself and while not the wisest thing I work through them and if it hurt I DONT do it. However other than landmine presses another press I found works great and the shoulders don't hurt is hex presses.

RoxieDawn

CowboySar wrote: »

I have shoulder issues myself and while not the wisest thing I work through them and if it hurt I DONT do it. However other than landmine presses another press I found works great and the shoulders don't hurt is hex presses.

This is wise kind of. I worked through it too many months, backed down weight etc until it got too much. I thought for a while it was normal workout soreness till it stayed sore, then it starting hurting some where else like my forearms assuming the body was trying to compensate, etc.

When pain and discomfort get to the point you can't do mundane every day tasks time for HALP. Lol

I will also look into hex presses. I won't know what works until I try some of these out. Thanks.

billkansas

I'm a 49 year old strength trainer and had a similar sounding injury to my left shoulder that happened in the fall of 2016. I finally had an MRI in mid-2017 (yeah, I'm hard headed and a tightwad) and diagnoses was something like "fluid filled sack near scapula". We also tried the steroid type injection in shoulder. My rotator cuff and other muscles were good (no surgery required). The ortho doctor said he saw no reason why I could not continue to lift just saying that he didn't believe this might result in further or serious injury (sorry lots of the doc stuff is added here by memory). After months of no improvement I gave up on ALL lifts that I thought could be aggravating the shoulder: weighted dips, lying tricep extensions (it hurt to press the bar into position and lower it), overhead barbell presses, bench press, weighted wide grip chinups. I was convinced that I would never bench press again, because I kept trying to resume even light bench presses for months and it always hurt. It wasn't until months of complete rest (I also quit doing dumbbell laterals and some of the rinky dink stuff that i thought was helping recovery and blood flow). (Side bar comment: some of the exercises I quit doing were not painful but regardless I believe now that they were aggravating my shoulder). Long story short(er), it wasn't until months of complete shoulder rest (I continued deadlifting and squat only) that my shoulder felt better and I then I resumed light overhead and bench pressing. Now, in 2018 after months of slowly upping the weights- I've hit some personal records in bench press and overhead press. My lesson learned is that some things might be aggravating the shoulder even thought they don't seem to be painful during exercise. In addition, this may go against modern physical therapy theory: but in my case complete rest was the remedy and not continually trying to improve blood flow and repair by trying to rehabilitate it via light weights. One last tidbit is I also switched to double overhand grip or hook grip for deadlift as I (partly) believe that the alternating deadlift grip may have been aggravating my shoulder (my left hand was the supinated grip and my left shoulder was the injured one). So, not very scientific... but this was my experience. Complete rest was key to my recovery and based on my reading of old lifters I will always be cautious about bench pressing and I will probably never do weighted dips, weighted chins, or heavy dumbbell bench pressing ever again. I'll also probably stick with DOH and hook grip when deadlifting.

The bright spot (other than my recovery) is also that my squat went up dramatically while I was taking time off of uppers. Best wishes and sorry for the confused book.

billkansas

Oddly, I recall that just turning the car's steering wheel or washing my hair would tweak my shoulder but at the same time things like wide grip chinups didn't appear to bother it so I kept trying. I never had what i would call chronic pain.. other than these tweaks my shoulder never really hurt much outside of the gym. I also thought I'd just gotten older and that I might never throw a baseball or shoot a jump shot again (I'm a lefty). These were some pessimistic and negative thoughts I had... don't believe these. I've definitely learned to go slow and to heal may require a complete and extended rest. I'd always heard that complete rest is the enemy- not what I found.

I also recall that everyone has their own shoulder rehab "story"... I almost had to jettison all of this noise and went with what worked for me. I recall I went on vacation and came back thinking my shoulder felt better.... this lead me to my "complete rest" approach.

RoxieDawn

billkansas wrote: »

Oddly, I recall that just turning the car's steering wheel or washing my hair would tweak my shoulder but at the same time things like wide grip chinups didn't appear to bother it so I kept trying. I never had what i would call chronic pain.. other than these tweaks my shoulder never really hurt much outside of the gym. I also thought I'd just gotten older and that I might never throw a baseball or shoot a jump shot again (I'm a lefty). These were some pessimistic and negative thoughts I had... don't believe these. I've definitely learned to go slow and to heal may require a complete and extended rest. I'd always heard that complete rest is the enemy- not what I found.

I also recall that everyone has their own shoulder rehab "story"... I almost had to jettison all of this noise and went with what worked for me. I recall I went on vacation and came back thinking my shoulder felt better.... this lead me to my "complete rest" approach.

I had trouble washing my hair as well. Heck even shaving under my arm was daunting as just reaching that way was too much. I had way too many chronic pain days even when I wasn't using my shoulder... this didn't seem right. I am a hardheaded oldish lady and hate going to doctors... but glad I did. Just knowing it wasn't a tear eased me mentally not just physically as I was worried I do something to it hence the guarding.

I am a firm believer in complete rest per se, stop doing the activities that caused it, over using is what did it.... so stop it. This is especially since I am older and finding the right rehabilitation exercises to do was key, if I had not gone to PT I would not have known those so that was time well spent. I still have a ways to go, time and more time and being cautious. I don't wanna be back where I was a month ago.