the rehab work thread

canadianlbs
canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
edited November 22 in Social Groups
i'm starting this thread because . . . well.

i figure i'm not the only one working on something like this, so why not make a space where we can all talk to each other (and to ourselves) while we try to figure it out. me, i am working on squats.

current frustration/disappointment is: i can be fine IF i'm just working at body weight. tips that i got from the trainer last friday have made a huge difference in just about the whole lift. chest up, is what it's all come down to. i was keeping a 'rigid' spine in the sense of having everything tight, but i was not keeping a neutral spine . . . and as i went down my hips and my shoulders were getting too far away from each other, with my mid-back stretching out like a pull-apart band in between them. i don't exactly understand how/why, but from proprioception i know i'd sort of reach forward with my shoulders as my balance was starting to go, and then have to un-reach myself to come back again, and take my word about this: it wasn't good.

so chest-up is way different. WAY different. it keeps my shoulders closer to the centre of gravity all the way down; for some reason that lets my hamstrings kick in, which was not what i thought. and i should be on my way now, except . . . i get myself under the bar and concentrate on applying the new subtle differences about exactly how to do all that upper-back tightening . . . and with the bar on my back and my hands/elbows up when i'm using this mode, i can't move. physically. i can't get my hips to do *kitten*. it's like being an elephant and not having the right kinds of leg joints to jump.

it's making me nuts. i'll get over it and get nuts about something else soon, but there it is.

it is driving me double-damned mad.
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Replies

  • krokador
    krokador Posts: 1,794 Member
    I'll chime in, even though my issue rigth now is not squats... I'll most likely will have to rebuild from the ground up when i actually can squat again. :(

    Sprained infraspinatus tendon has me frustrated to no end, though. I'll be in the middle of a workout and nothing really seems to hurt. Then half an hour later, no matter how much I babied the sucker it hurts for hours on end! Whyyyy?!

    I mean, it's bad enough it's limiting my upper body lifts and even core work to anything that doesn't require stabilizing against rotational forces (so basically, unilateral machines and relatively low weights are all I can do, on the left side. Ugh.) But then it also makes work painful because I have to use that arm to move my mouse around and type.

    And despite the forced break, my tennis elbow-tendonitis thingy on the left side is not getting better, either. Might have to ask the physio about that one when I seem him for my shoulder tomorrow -_-'

    @canadianlbs there is one thing that is a little weird with me and squats (or me and my lower back) that may or may not ring a bell for you? I seem to have 2 different "locked out" hip positions. One of them makes me unable to bear any load or squat when I'm into it. It's like my spine gets stuck in this weird lever thing where I'm *too* upright for my own good (but at the same time, it's not hyperextension)? It's really hard to describe. But I basically get out of that scary alignment by sticking my butt out and all of a sudden WHAM I have all my wits to me and can crank out a set easy. I pay for it dearly when I don't think about it (but that was forever ago, now it's kind of an automatism. Because you don't something scary like that happen more than once or twice when you can avoid it). So... maybe that's helpful?
  • symba1130
    symba1130 Posts: 248 Member
    Following...
    This may be helpful when I try using a barbell again :-) Hoping for that to be sooner than later!
  • andylllI
    andylllI Posts: 379 Member
    I got nothing...except my trainer doesn't like the way I am using my traps and holding my neck in front squats and wants me to stop doing them for a while and just do goblet squats with kettle bells. I almost cried. Seems like such a step back even tho going forward with poor form is a really bad idea too.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    krokador wrote: »
    I seem to have 2 different "locked out" hip positions. One of them makes me unable to bear any load or squat when I'm into it.

    i've got . . . probably a different thing mechanically, but the same gd issue. something is right sometimes, but i can't find or reproduce it, and so that's why i really do need an outside observer and a tommy-suggs-style bit-by-bit coach. from inside my skin i just don't know and i can't help myself.
    So... maybe that's helpful?

    it's comforting :) the infraspinatus thing sounds horrible. i HATE those things that hurt when you do them, but you just can't find or reproduce it consistently. the massage therapists that i've kept waiting while i flailed my left arm around and kept saying 'hang on, just a second, i'll find it, it happens when . . . except not al- aha! oh, no, it's gone again.' very aggh. but i'm glad you went.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    andylllI wrote: »
    I almost cried.

    i know how you feel. and i want to be doing goblet squats or whatever it takes. but it really does feel so half-assed and disarrayish, doesn't it?

    i absolutely hated my attempts today.

    [ignore-at-will zone, i'm just yammering and being all beady-eyed and obsessed]

    based on today's workout, my current problem is this: instead of shrugging up and letting my ribcage round forwards to make room for the bar, the trainer has me starting out in a much more tits-up position, and with the bar feeling almost like i'm pulling it down into my back. to me it feels like i'm starting with a hollow upper back but i like it and most probably my upper back is no more than level. one of the observers pointed out that when i'm starting up out of the hole i'm visibly picking then as my first moment to lift up my chest. so, y'know. no wonder i'm feeling spine torque. soon as i took that onboard and adjusted, at least one of the signature scary-click feelings stopped clicking, of course. so as a fix i'm very happy with it and it's a start.

    so far so good about that, but the difference now is . . . i can't tighten my core. like, neurologically. it's not like i can't find my abs; i can find hell out of them IF i don't have the bar on my back. but with the bar on my rear delts and my chest up and my entire upper back making the new noises it makes in this new situation, i literally cannot 'find' those ab muscles or figure out how to get them engaged. so as soon as i break and start my hips backwards, of course . . . i'm missing a pretty key piece. it may be why my knees are coming so far forward instead. and just oh-ffs about that.

    other thing i can't find is the rest of myself. can't find my abs to brace them, can't find my glutes to engage them OR keep them tight while i'm moving backwards; screw my feet into the ground/split the floor apart yada yada yeahyeahiknow . . . can't get any of that to happen either. it's just deranged. i'm going to be keeping on keeping at it. borrowed my kitchen broom from myself and i don't care who sees me out back on my deck nine or ten times a day doing this asinine stuff. i am going to rebuild this squat thing if it kills everyone.
  • andylllI
    andylllI Posts: 379 Member
    My trainer always tellse chest up but tuck/ pull down on the lower ribs to engage/ brace my core. Would that help?
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    andylllI wrote: »
    My trainer always tellse chest up but tuck/ pull down on the lower ribs to engage/ brace my core. Would that help?

    it answers one of the questions on my okay-next-question list. which is basically exactly how to go about 'engaging my core.' because you can give me an instruction like that, and right out of the gate i'll be able to think up three or four different ways of getting it done. it's no wonder i test software for a living, and no woner that i get form creep as well.

    off to experiment.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    edited August 2015
    i'm grateful to both of you guys today.

    to andy because your answer to my core ponderment has been unbelievably useful. i went out on the deck with my broomstick last night and just worked on the neurology of it, figuring out how to make it happen when i've got my chest open and my shoulders down. once i got the 'hunh!' thing going, i added the breath thing, and that seems to be another key ( i always used to breathe in and brace at the same time, or take my big breath and then brace). these things, right on top of the slight stance adjustment the trainer gave me, seem to have blown about 95% of my form issues and every bit of my buttwink right off the map. it may be early days still, but i'm so encouraged. i've got depth, balance, stability, stretch reflex in the posterior chain, hip drive . . . the whole bit. maybe (touch wood) even some strength. i went in to the gym tonight and spent an hour or more just fine-tuning my nervous system and being maniacally anal about getting every bit of it right, bit by bit, with one of those thick padded bars that weigh only 6 pounds or so. and finally (grand finale), i put it all into the rack and did my full, formal 5x5 stronglifts sets with the bar.

    i'm maybe even more grateful to krok because your shoulder diagnosis turned on one of those durrr-about-time-sherlock lightbulbs for me. this thing that i've had forever and thought was just a chronically tight lat/teres/rear shoulder . . . i went googling and i don't think that no more. i think it's strain/wear on something horrible, most probably the entire serratus anterior attachment along the medial border of my left shoulderblade. totally changed my focus, from trying to stretch that itchy/burning/triggerpointy feeling away to trying to not have the feeling at all.

    i probably spent even more of my warmup time on my shoulders than i did on the squats. just making sure i was taking care of those two bits of business properly before i even went near the rack. right now for however long this will last, i feel like i'm completely done with ego lifting and i'm just interested in doing teeny tiny little things and listening properly to hear if my body likes it.

    anyway, tl;dr: you guys both really helped. when i finally did get around to trying my squats in the rack, i did the full 5x5 sets with the bar and with form i really felt happy about.
  • krokador
    krokador Posts: 1,794 Member
    [...]

    i'm maybe even more grateful to krok because your shoulder diagnosis turned on one of those durrr-about-time-sherlock lightbulbs for me. this thing that i've had forever and thought was just a chronically tight lat/teres/rear shoulder . . . i went googling and i don't think that no more. i think it's strain/wear on something horrible, most probably the entire serratus anterior attachment along the medial border of my left shoulderblade. totally changed my focus, from trying to stretch that itchy/burning/triggerpointy feeling away to trying to not have the feeling at all.

    Oh, yeah, there's a possibility it's an overuse injury of sorts that you might be preventing from getting better by constantly trying to stretch it out. If that helps, I can share the rehab work the physio gave me. It,s pretty standard issue shoulder strengthening band exercises, but if it can help, it doesn't take, uh, *that* long to do.

    Unless you're me and suddenly get hit with some kind of weird mood as you discover you CAN squat again, with the bar. And even 95lbs on your back (or maybe it was 85 total, not sure how much that fat bar weighed, but I couldn't clean weight up so that's what I had to use). But your form looks like crap (at least to me it does. Maybe my angles were just crappy) and it aggravates, oh, not just your already somewhat sensistive elbow, but the one on the injured shoulder's side too because hey I didn't have enough problem as is.

    So there is something I'm doing (or not doing) that's causing my elbows to just hurt whenever I pull my wrists back. My triceps are tight mofo's but today rolling them out didn't really help.

    So I ended up spending 5-10 minutes between squat sets doing more than what I was prescribed, way more. With the band. And that just made me so... I don't know, bored and blasé and I'm not even sure anymore. So I left afetr an hour with 4.5 barbell squats working sets in and a bunch of stretching feeling like you'd just told me my cat died.

    And this is not helpful to anyone but right now my mood is just so full of crap and it has no reason to be: my shoulder survived all that work and doesn't even hurt much. So it IS getting better. But I guess the whole weight of the process has just hit me, and going into the gym without a definite plan (because no program on this planet focuses solely on leg machines...) is starting to have its toll on my motivation. I just needed somewhere to vent this frustration/discouragement, so thanks for listening?
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    krokador wrote: »
    But I guess the whole weight of the process has just hit me, and going into the gym without a definite plan (because no program on this planet focuses solely on leg machines...) is starting to have its toll on my motivation. I just needed somewhere to vent this frustration/discouragement, so thanks for listening?

    you just named how i was feeling a few weeks ago, when i formally barred myself from doing any more squats until i got help. on my own birthday, yet :'(:'( i had to leave before i started to publicly snivel and rage because i feel the same way about just drifting around doing airplanes and pull-aparts and y's and t's and those external-rotation thingies. i know that they're helpful but i want to LIFT. except then i try to do some kind of lift, and then it's just all so damned wrong that i also don't-want-to lift. so it sucks and all my inner muppet wants to do is trash everything. i feel like i'm getting punished for/by having so much work ethic or whatever the word for it is, so it makes me feel like i can't see the *kitten* point of being me, when being-me doesn't seem like any part of it works.

    anyway, thanks for the chance to co-vent. i'm controlling it (so far) by getting obsessed with the minutiae instead. me, on the back deck in full view of the mincey neighbours all day, doing endless tits-up practice with an old kitchen broom on my back. and, if i'm going to be truthing in here, half the time with a cigarette stuck in the side of my mouth.
  • andylllI
    andylllI Posts: 379 Member
    I think am that drive to practice is amazing. It's why you'll be equating 3x body weight in a couple years and I will still be squating 0.8 BW and cursing my butt wink!
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    andylllI wrote: »
    I think am that drive to practice is amazing. It's why you'll be equating 3x body weight in a couple years and I will still be squating 0.8 BW and cursing my butt wink!

    yeah, but you climb mountains or something. even pullups make me feel a little too far off the ground.

  • andylllI
    andylllI Posts: 379 Member
    Eh...the kind of mountain climbing I do relies on only two things for success: a capacity for suffering and knowing when to turn around and go home. :)
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    damn knees. stoopid tight hip flexors, bah.

    i'll try it again tomorrow.
  • krokador
    krokador Posts: 1,794 Member
    So, like, I totally overdid it on the poor shoulder yesterday and now it's angry :(

    But seriously, why is holding a backpack on my back painful at all? IDEK.

    Still gonna hit the gym this morning though. Can't let this thing keep me down. But I'll hold off till tonight for the rehab work. I'd like to spend my work day with as little pain as possible tyvm.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    krokador wrote: »
    If that helps, I can share the rehab work the physio gave me. It,s pretty standard issue shoulder strengthening band exercises, but if it can help, it doesn't take, uh, *that* long to do.

    notlikei'mdoinganythingelsethat'susefulgarrarARRRGh. i would like them please, yes. i've gone and put a new pinch in the rear capsule of my other shoulder, and i'm feeling a little worried about it.

    on a related note, my new magic-bullet move atm is the pec stretch.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    one thing i'm trying to work on is hard to explain but i find it sometimes and then sometimes i don't, so i want to leave it here for my own reference. it's about that core thing.

    when i stand up with the bar on my shoulders, i'm pretty neutral. shoulders a little bit forward perhaps, but my legs are still straight. what i found out the other night is if i do the next part of it right - the core engagement - i don't even have to worry about 'unlocking' my hips. the hunh! from my abs seems to start the whole thing. it's almost as if pulling my core into shape and my lower ribs down punches my hips backwards a little bit all by themselves, just naturally. so it's reminding me of the whole 'push and rebound' idea for the overhead press, except going the opposite way. i found that if i get that part all right and catch that backwards movement at the right time, i can continue it very naturally straight into the hips-backward thing.

    reason why i'm bringing this up is, a) very exciting and it seems to make the stretch rebound in the hole come more easily too. and b) its effect on my knees. knees have been killing me all through this latest reboot, and no amount of messing around seems to have helped me to get my squats out of my quads. BUT if i do all of this right, it's . . . um. bear with me here. somehow, for some reason, if i really kick it hard from my core, it's working. or at least it might be working . or at least maybe there's hope.

    it's like my abs are the hamstrings of the upper part of my squats. make sense? like, basically, the entire squat hinges around your hips. so, on the front side of a squat, the muscles involved are your abs or your quads. clearly i'm over-using my quads. BUT the solution to it - for me - doesn't seem like it's just in my glutes or hamstrings at least while i'm on my descent. the solution for it seems to be in using more of my abs.

    it's bizarre. idek if it's sensible. but, like i say. i wanted to leave the thought here.
  • krokador
    krokador Posts: 1,794 Member
    it's like my abs are the hamstrings of the upper part of my squats. make sense? like, basically, the entire squat hinges around your hips. so, on the front side of a squat, the muscles involved are your abs or your quads. clearly i'm over-using my quads. BUT the solution to it - for me - doesn't seem like it's just in my glutes or hamstrings at least while i'm on my descent. the solution for it seems to be in using more of my abs.

    it's bizarre. idek if it's sensible. but, like i say. i wanted to leave the thought here.

    Makes sense actually. Tighter core and braced abs will lead to a more upright posture which will transfer more of the loads to your heels/backside, thus less on the quads. Also, if you're finding the stretch reflex it does put less of a pounding on your knees simply from the fact that instead of "hitting the bottom" and forcing yourself back up with the stretch from your knees, you're working it in your glutes which are MEANT to do this (sprinting?) whereas the knees are not supposed to do that kind of work.

    I've been finding that groove when doing bodyweight squats lately, where I bounce of my glutes rather than just the bottom position. Maybe I don't go quite as ATG doing so, but I know I'm still breaking parallel (I can feel my calves touching my butt, aye) and it's quite a relief on them poor knees. i still have some tenderness in that right one from the damaged miniscus, so anything that helps... helps.

  • andylllI
    andylllI Posts: 379 Member
    I did zercher squats last night. I found it was easier to engage core and hit bottom and hey, at least it was a new kind of "goblet". Sigh.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    whoa it's (much)hard(er) to do all that chest-up core-grab stuff with an actual bar, even when it's just 45 pounds. however, i paid a gym visit and worked at it, with 5lb progressions and a few sets of 5 every time. where i ended up for 'work' sets was 65 pounds, although i only did three sets of those. back okay atm. none of that scary little tiny-firecracker feeling at any point, or almost none.

    also proved (kind of) that i still have my 50-lb ohp mojo. for 3 sets of five, but w/e. for that i started with just 20 pounds since i was at the gym with the fixed barbells where this can be done. mr new-trainer guy says it's really important to do initial sets with a weight so light that it's practically negligible, so you can remind your body of how the form works. and then progress upwards by small jumps, so you can keep re-reminding yourself with every change in the weight. ohp really seems to work better for me if i do it this way.
  • awkwardsoul
    awkwardsoul Posts: 222 Member
    I'm annoyed that not too long ago I was out for 5 weeks with low back pain. I did this during yoga, I was forward bending a lot during that session, and after I felt off. Then for 3 weeks I was in enough pain to know better that I shouldn't lift.

    Then I started lifting again. Maybe I was getting too aggressive getting back. I was really careful with anything back related and the only thing that immediately bothered me was Pendlay Rows. Then now my knee hurts when i bend it. My guess was when I was doing sumo deadlifts and turning in my knee when i was trying to learn form. Pretty much bodyweight squats makes my knee hurt.

    So I'm stuck doing upperbody. I found bench was a little tricky as with my knees bent and tension - so I felt I had some issues having that connection of power of my feet on the ground, if that makes sense. Alas, I hope after this I'm good. No more trading injuries.
  • krokador
    krokador Posts: 1,794 Member
    edited August 2015
    That sounds like me, treatin one injury after another and always having to somewhat work around issues. It's annoying but is there seriously enough time in the day to get everything done and spend 30-45 minutes prehabing and mobilizing everything to avoid injuries? You can't prevent everything! Heck, I can't even catch up on my spring cleaning! (Yes, I realize it's August already. Cut me some slack, I live alone with 2 cats!)

    Shoulder mysteriously stopped hurting around 3pm yesterday afternoon. Maybe I was too tired to feel it. It's better today. I got the mindnumbing 10 minutes of rehab done just before my shower. It flared up a bit, but nothing like it was since Sunday. Physio appointment this afternoon. Hopefully I can schedule the next (and hopefully last) one in 2 weeks and be done with this injury. Ugh!
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    krokador wrote: »
    is there seriously enough time in the day to get everything done and spend 30-45 minutes prehabing and mobilizing everything to avoid injuries?

    this, yeah. i mean, every stretch is supposed to be held for 30-60 seconds, and if you've got multiple muscle groups or joints to be careful about then how many is that? putting together a warmup routine that will bulletproof you is like trying to choose between mobile/cell plans when you're not willing to go past a specific price range.

    it's turning into a big reason why pre-work working out isn't really working out too well for me. the lifting itself i could do and still have a comfortable window for getting to work. but the mobilization and warmup, especially in the mornings . . . that really adds time.

  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    rehab report: i worked hard on a horrible tender spot just behind my right iliac ridge before squatting today, which was giving me five kinds of hell every time i went past halfway-down in my initial testing. took my sweet time on my shoulders as well. i also actually did some psoas/glute stretching afterwards too. i never never do the quad/flexor stretching i should, unless something happens that makes me be conscientious about it for a while. right now is one of those times.

    anyway the results seem to be positive. twelve hours since i did my full sets with a work weight of 60 pounds, and i don't have that scary feeling from my lower back that was making me think about the angle of every movement before i made it, just in case of nerve impingement or a sudden disc pop. and so far at least the fallout to my knees seems to be minimal too. so i think i did better today at keeping my spine stable and the weight off my toes.

    there's been a posterior-capsule pinch in my right shoulder as well for the past couple of weeks, which has been bothering me more than i was prepared to admit. that seems to be improving as i work harder on the pull-aparts, plus stretching my pecs. ever since physio, i can actually feel the tops of my own humerus(es) to see if they're out of alignment with the acromion, and that seems a bit better than it has been for a while. the flared lat/serratus/infra-sub-something or whatever it is that's been irritated and painful since forever . . . it's still there, but it seems to be responding much better to just being left alone than it ever did to any of the tough love i was using on it. so i think i'll keep on with that approach towards it.

    overall (fingers crossed) pretty good.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    what i'm doing right now is the rippetoe prescription for finding your work weight as a brand noob. start with bar. do few sets. when form is set solid, add 5. do few sets. repeat until you find the top weight you can handle; do 3-5 and call that your workout for that particular lift. today i got 65 after getting 60 last time, so hey; i'm still calling progress for it.

    i'm going to keep this up for the next workout, and then hopefully on friday trainer guy will set/watch me squatting again and can add the next layer of feedback. a couple of things:

    - left wrist has long-standing habit of extending (?flexing?gah) under. and i have a long-standing habit of letting it happen because hey. poor feeble incapable left shoulder doens't know/can't do any better etc. i am no longer allowing even a slight hint of this. oddly enough, getting my left hand UP on the bar and making sure that my left wrist is rigid and STRAIGHT . . . guess what. it actually fixes some of the mess on that side.

    - trying to keep both hands more on top of the bar actually. if i don't, it pushes my arm bones forwards from behind, and that leaves me with front-delt strain that i do not like in the least. and still with keeping the upper back tight tight tight.

    - i learned a good thing from the trainer about placing my hands for a grip so as to be robotically consistent about symmetry. never have been especially careful about that before, but now i like it. it's about using landmark points on my thumbs or whatever, to always put my hands in exactly the same place relative to bar knurling. every time.

    - i'm honestly starting to think that a full 25% of all my problems, whatever they are, would probably be eliminated if i would just stretch my damn pecs. and do it symmetrically too. not just full-treatment on the left side and then 'eh meh good enough' on the right.
  • krokador
    krokador Posts: 1,794 Member
    So after the weekend away I am pleased to say there's progress in the shoulder department (even tho I skimped on the rehab a bit while i was gone). The pec is still sore and tight as all getups (and it was actually killing me on the drive down, just uncomfortable on the drive back) but I can do incline (counter level) push-ups without pain and actually managed inchworms and upward dog holds this AM so slow progress is slow, but better than nothing. Got another physio appointment tomorrow and again hoping this is the one before last (I know better than to think it'll be the last).

    I definitely have golfer's elbow (pain on the inside) on the left side, though. It now flares up on its own from time to time, so it's rather annoying. I saw this thing called the theraband flex bar that seems to be helpful for solving both that and tennis elbow, and it's like 15$ on amazon so I think I might spring for that and see if it helps. I just hope the race gets back to me about that volunteering though because I planned with that extra 50$ in mind! lol. Should be getting the voodoo bands soon so I'll also keep you guys updated on how well that "flossing" thing works.

  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    krokador wrote: »
    So after the weekend away I am pleased to say there's progress in the shoulder department

    yay!!! it's so hard for me not to blow it as soon as i get a little bit of leeway back. but i'm trying hard not to this time. hope yours keeps on rewarding you for acting like a grownup too.

    squats going better. much much. that whole mechanics problem blew up so out-of-nowhere without me ever really understanding where it came from, and now it (almost) feels like it's gone away the same way. not quite, i'm really not back at the cocky point yet. but so much better; really.

    i'm sure finding out though that i must have been doing it wrong for a really long time. because idk which muscles my bad form was making strong enough to lift all that weight, but it sure wasn't the muscles that good form calls for. i'm really trying from second to second to hand off the job to my hamstrings and keep the weight over at least my mid-foot, and i tell ya. my hamstrings are acting like beaker throughout the whole thing. "meep meep, who me? SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS?? MEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!"

    and i'm now into minuscule really anal little dilemmas like exactly when and how to pop my hips back and in what trajectory, and stuff like that.

  • awkwardsoul
    awkwardsoul Posts: 222 Member
    edited August 2015
    I was thinking the other day, a shoulder injury is gotta be rough. We use our shoulders for so many lifts, even indirectly, like holding the bar in low bar squats or hauling full plates around. My back issues and knee pain I can work around easily enough.

    My knee is feeling better. It's really hard to tell sometimes - is it feeling off but I don't feel it as I got adrenaline? Maybe those painkillers I took for my period could be masking the pain? Sometimes it's like I'm so desperate to lift again I just don't care (which I ran into with my back injury).

    With all the focus I've been doing on my upper body - OHP, bench, rows, shrugs, pull up progression my upperbody has visibly developed more. I've been doing all this upperbody for weeks with the back pain (yuck seating military OHP) and now this, when I get back to lower body I'm gonna have such wacky numbers!
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    made a long bike trip today just to get myself a cheap-*kitten* massage, because i'm impractical in that kind of way.

    anyway. tfl wtf, basically. i mean, SERIOUSLY. i asked her to get grizzly on anything that might be impeding my squats, and my teeth almost broke out in a sweat when she found those.
  • krokador
    krokador Posts: 1,794 Member
    I was thinking the other day, a shoulder injury is gotta be rough. We use our shoulders for so many lifts, even indirectly, like holding the bar in low bar squats or hauling full plates around. My back issues and knee pain I can work around easily enough.

    Yeah, I found it aggravating with my knee injury earlier last year, but I was still able to do *some* leg work and my upper body was fine. The shoulder... well, even using just my left hard tends to be hard because whether you like it or not, you have to stabilize. Even ab work is hard to do because if I have to resist any twisting motion it hurts.

    It,s getting better. I can do counter push-ups. So there is progress. I can't believe it's basically been a month already, though. Ugh.

    Yesterday's appointment revealed more stuff about my musculature imbalances that I probably should have known about already. I have weak traps. Mostly the lower traps (I'll have a progress picture tomorrow, I don't need shrugs, the cleans have built my upper traps to a, eh, decent level.) behind the lats. Apparently, most people have the opposite problem and their rhomboids are underdeveloped. I just have to go against the grain even when I don't try, uh? Also, my shoulder hypermobility is my own worst enemy at the moment. Being super flexible is not always a good thing xD

    Anyways, the corrective exercise for this one is going to be the most time-eating focused lame boring rehab thing ever (but for some reason, I think you'd sort of enjoy it @canadianlbs , in a twisted way). It's basically bringing up my arms slowly and getting the shrug in "naturally" because I'm so used to letting mr. Rombo take all the work that I barely use poor tiny trapezius. The physio's words here: "You have a really impressive musculature, and then I touch back there *pokes behind my shoulder blade* and I basically hit the bone right up."

    That may explain why I've been having a bit of a hard time getting into that correct high bar squat position... And hey, maybe after this I can ohp 100lbs! I'll definitely have a more balanced shoulder joint.

    So now I have those trapezius arm raises, the external shoulder rotation, the straight arm horizontal pull, the sleeper stretch, the pec & triceps stretches, trigger point massage all around the area and posture correction on that rehab list. We're probably talking 45 minutes a day. (I said I'd share those, so if you need a description/demo of anything just let me know)

    And right now my arm is hanging off of k-tape. And I am now wondering why I didn't get myself a sling. Or think of doing that before. The strain on my shoulder is so much less. It looks wonky as hell but at least this week the tape is skin-colored lol.

    And I gotta say, this thing is draining all my energy and willpower :| Skipped the gym this morning. A part of me is hoping I'll have *some* energy tonight to do something, but I know better than to hold out for that considering the week I've had.

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