I am 10 weeks post shoulder surgery. I am not to familiar with a frozen shoulder. I had labral tear, bicep tendinitis and a bone spur. Im wishful that ill be back on a board at six months but see how it goes. Ill start lap swimming again first. Realistically it might be closer to a year.
Ive considered once im almost done with strength recovery hiring a personal trainer to help develop some routines to keep my shoulders strong. Or better, if I can get my physical therapist to develop a good list to move forward with.
Would be interested in what your shoulder routine is.
I’ve had a slightly dickie shoulder for a few years, could not throw a ball hard or hit an overhead smash in badminton without pain. But around this time last year we were getting concreting done around the house and I needed to hand dig heaps of trenches for the water pipes to feed into or tanks and a few other things under the slab, but the area had previously had large palm trees there and the roots made the digging hard going even with regular sharpening of the spade edge. The there was the F###ing jack hammering of a large section of footings at the base of an existing brick wall. My body is/was not built for several hours on end of jack hammering over several days.
The after the concrete was don by the professionals I had a sore shoulder and a huge amount of work that still needed to be done, re routing the surface drainage, laying turf/sod and a small retaining wall. I did try to find people capable of doing the work and not me, but good help is hard to find and I ended up having to re do half the work I had paid people to do.
Needless to say by about august sept the shoulder was straight up saying “NO”. By the time I got into see specialists I was told I was one of the more extreme cases of frozen shoulder they had seen. Agonising pain, and super restricted movement. Hence the surgery as an option as I was told it would be at least 18 months to 2 years to recover and my extreme case would be closer to the 2 year mark.
De-marhmellowing the whole body…
Current exercises (with every one of these I try really hard to hold my core inner layers of gut muscles tight, and attempt to stop my lumbar area curve, keep lumber flat against the floor if im laying down etc)
Thoracic spine rolls over a foam roller 10 reps hold for 5 seconds
Roll up a beach towel lay over it lengthways down your spine, straight arms up palms meeting, then lower the arm down to the ground, concentrate on relaxing the shoulder into the flat position when your hands reach the ground. 10 reps, Hold for 5 -10 seconds then return hands up to in front of your face. I’ve recently started doing these with 1.25 L bottle of water in each hand.
Stay on the towel holding the full water bottle in the bad arm and reach the both arms straight back above you’re head, hold for 10 secs or longer as I feel the shoulder position around and try to maintain good scapular position. 10 reps
Lay on side, both hands out in front, palms touching, ground side leg straight, top leg out at 90 degrees knee on ground. Rotate upper hand and spine back behind you but keep knee on ground. 10 reps hold for 10 secs, have upgraded to the bottle of water but only for about 5-7 reps then I drop the bottle. At least on the sore side. (Sometimes I do this one three rounds)
Then I start triplets doing each of the three exercises in a cycle, and repeat it 2-3 times depending on energy levels. Triplet one. 1. Two feet hip raise bridge things, lay on back, feet planted on ground, thrust your hips to the sky. 20 reps. 2. Get on hands and knees, Cat cow stretches into lumbar stretch and shoulder stretch, so curve back up and down 4 times, focus on lumbar curving up to the sky then lower your but to your feet, stretching your arms out and focus on your head pushing between your arms for 10 seconds. Do this 10 times. 3. Get on hands and knees, lift opp arm and leg as high and straight as you can, hold for 5 seconds. Hold core strong and concentrate on the bad shoulder lifting as high as you can.
Triplet two. 1. Lay on back legs off the ground, shins horizontal, thigh vertical, hold lower back against the ground, lower feet to just above the ground then straighten legs out flat keeping them just above the ground then reverse back. 10 reps. 2. Stretchy band between your feet. Crab Walk sideways. 10-15 steps each way. Using the xxxheavy band. 3. Weighted sit stands. 18 kg st on the chair and stand up. 10-15 times.
Triplet three. 1. Bicep curls, I only have 6 kg dumbbells each hand. 30 reps. 2. Reverse lunges/ single leg squats 10 reps each leg. 3. Bent over single arm rows 9 kg. 20 reps. Each side. (Sometimes I add in some tricep lifts in this position too 6-10 reps)
Triplet four. 1. Push ups. Sets of 5 atm (full body), and sets of 10 knee (push ups). 2. Tricep pull downs with exercise stretch band. 15-20 reps. 3. Trunk rotations with stretchy bands, straight arms out in front of you, band attached to an attachment to your side. Plant feet legs and hips, rotate trunk and arms to work twisting core muscles. 15-20 reps each side
Triplet five. 1. Internal and external rotator cuff with stretchy band 10-15 reps each side in and out. 2. Straight arm pull downs from a head high attachment with the stretchy band, facing the attachment and then out to the side. 15 reps each side each way. 3. Standing double arm rows with stretch band.
Thanks for sharing that. “Construction is a young man’s game.” I had a construction job in Flagstaff for a while in my 30’s and we were hand digging a 100 foot trench. I would get sore every night and that’s what the boss told me (boss was James Turrell- google him).
Good luck on the rehab. That seems a petty comprehensive program. Stick with it!
When I was doing training with a coach a couple years back we did something similar, but the scientific reasons were not mentioned.
We would set heart rate goals , starting with 120 bpm on a flat track and just see what pace comes up.
I remember , although I had run for several years regularly my first “runs” were around 10 min /k, which felt strange , because at that pace you can just slowly walk. It’s a good opportunity to philosophize about posture and foot technique while running though;).
Than we would try to cut down on the bpm till we reached an average of 110 for example and then raise the pace or try to go slightly uphill the week after. After a couple of weeks we started doing sprints on a track, successive getting longer.Now that I look back , it’s interesting that my 10k time did not really improve, but my 21k and 42k did .
Thanks sk8ment for the in depth workout. I had to read it a couple times to visualize how they all worked. Im doing a similar version of your 1,2,3. I saved the text for the rest for a later date when Im back into exercise mode.
Not sure where you are located, but Ive been looking into the crossover symmetry shoulder system by rogue fitness. Its pretty pricey but lots of good reviews for shoulder rehab and stabilization. They have different resistance levels. I was going to have my physical therapist take a look before I go all in on it.
Any type of work outside always seems to be hard labor. I always try to do my own work, contractor prices these days are crazy. Unfortunately i dont think ill do much heavy or impact work anymore. Dont want to go through another shoulder injury, once is enough!
As a scientist, I offer this caution.
Training programs can often become fads or trendy based on popular opinion.
I am not condemning trainers. I am sure there are many good ones. However, they are “selling” a service.
Just remember, if a proposed training technique cannot be substantiated with replicated data from peer-reviewed science journals it is suspect (and likely opinion).
As I have mentioned, I use theory too (not substantiated with specific data). But I use credible, published scientific theory.
When in doubt, my back-up is to usually search information published by the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic (e.g. “heart rate zones”).
With the current heart rate zone discussion, I did a quick internet search and found this informative “general article.” https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/how-to-train-with-a-heart-rate-monitor.html
Then I followed up with several articles published by the Mayo and Cleveland clinics.
Training programs often have very specific objectives (e.g. competition, rehab, cardiovascular health, increasing muscle mass, strength, endurance, speed, weight loss, etc).
Muscle and cardiovascular physiology involve multi-factorial systems, with a whole suite of inputs — chemical messengers, biochemical triggers, metabolite loads, hormones, blood gasses, electrolytes, minerals etc.
Be careful out there…
I think the zone 2 benefits are well documented in the scientific community. Not just a fad because it’s been going on so long. There is growing consensus in the endurance sport community about the 80/20 split- 80% slow easy (zone 2) training, alternating with 20% high intensity training. The Norwegian runners and cross country skiers use it as do the Kenyan marathoners. Of course the Kenyan marathoners easy zone 2 pace would be a sprint that I could sustain for 100 yards for me.
Many years ago I tried to do one lap on the track (440 yards) at the record marathon pace and I couldn’t do it. I was several seconds off and finished lying on thee ground gasping for air.
I also like handstand pushups and pull ups for paddle strength. Those alone were enough for upper body.
Sadly I recently got Tibialias Posterior Tendinopathy, which stopped me barefoot running because I’ve got to rest it.
But by resting it, I ended up not replacing it with something else and lost a lot of fitness this summer. It’s really hard to do zone 4 without using the ankle. It’s been 6 weeks and it hardly feels much better! (even cycling and swimming aren’t zero impact and I didn’t realise how convenient just stepping out and running is)
I have a referral for a physio and a podiatrist, but what are they going to do that’s any help here?
Sadly, staying off your injury/damage long enough for healing is the best option.
Regarding swimming, which I had to stop because of local pool closure, my 1/2 mile swims had no ankle impact. I did what I call the Surfer Crawl. Paddling out did not involve kicking for me. So I modified my swims by using arms only — great surf stamina training.
Hope your tendon problem heals quickly.
To help isolate your legs and keep them from sinking, I’ve seen lap swimmers use these. (I found doing the Surfer Crawl fast enough to keep my legs from sinking was the perfect workout speed.)
Copped a rail of my board to the front of my ribs returning to the water.
Been super painful for near two weeks now. F it! There is a super painful spot 2-3 inches above my right nipple.
Tried to surf again a week after and it hurt a lot to push the board back under me.
Alas, there aint much I can do. Just breath through it and wait… Yes deep breaths hurt.
The frustrating thing is that it was because i was being cautious that it happened.
Ouch! You poor bugger, rib injuries are the worst. Time is about the only thing that will heal it. Hot then Cold treatment may help expedite recovery a little? I’ve done it a few times myself. Since my last one I’ve started including some intercostal exercises in my routine which has helped.
That sucks about your ribs. Broken or cracked?
Sadly backing off until it heals is likely to be the best approach. Intense pain is the alarm to ease up. Don’t aggravate the injury further.
Didn’t get to work out during my vacation. Took me 3 weeks to get back to where I was before I went.
Slow but steady wins the race. (And I have to force myself to be patient sometimes.)
