Mike's Log - The Road to Recovery

Thank you for the happy birthday, and I did indeed eat bad stuff.

November 8th

Low Bar Squat
Warmup
235 x 5,5,5,5

Pause Bench
Warmup
200 x 5,5,5

Chins
Warmup
Me + 90 x 5,5,5

Leg Curls
82.5 x 8,8

Notes:

Squats I ****ed around with oly shoes and then Sambas on the last set. I probably jumped this up a little too much, but oh well.

My bigger concern is that my left shoulder was really irritated again tonight. I took 2 weeks off from any lifting and started this cycle extremely submaximal on everything, but for some reason my shoulder pain does not seem to want to heal. Not honestly sure what to do about it, I'd hate to abandon this cycle but if this continues I'm going to have to start making exercise substitutions or something.
 
That shoulder issue sucks. Hope you can get to the bottom of the problem.

Having only recently started back squatting again I'm fairly sure that my left shoulder somehow gets irritated by the way the load acts on it while squatting when I get up into <10RM territory. I'm not really aware of it while I'm lifting, but it lets me know about it the next day. Then I have to do a ton of stretching, foam rolling and ball rolling to help. Front squats don't cause the problem at all.

I'll see if it feels worse again tomorrow after tonight's back squats.
 
AlexAustralia said:
Re: shoulder - what sort of stretching, flexibility and movement work do you do, if any ... ?
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I do band dislocates daily and before training, was doing internal rotation stretching along with occasional pec/shoulder stretching and the like.

My experience is that stretching often seems to backfire, honestly. I.e. I seem MORE likely to get hurt the more I stretch, so I've considered abandoning it altogether, and have actually scaled back the shoulder stretching as it was the most hurt when I was doing the most mobility/stretching for it.
 
In my studies, it seems like 99% of shoulder problems stem from some sort of imbalance. Eric Cressey is awesome in this area.
How is your external rotator strength? How about scapular muscles, do you do any serratus pushes or rhomboid work? I had a bad shoulder for years, and finally found that the impingement for me was caused primarily by an imbalance, a very weak supraspinitus and shut-down serratus on the right side. Focusing heavily on strengthening and activating those weak areas for a few months did wonders for my shoulder. Now I just maintain with some scap-pushes and side laterals to keep those weaknesses from returning.

I basically found the problems by testing each individual shoulder muscle using EXRX kinesiology chart. By finding my weaknesses and bringing them up, my impingement slowly disappeared.... mind you, it wasn't overnight, it took a few months of rehab work to get my shoulder back in balance.

If you can afford it, see a shoulder specialist to diagnose it...wishing you well bro.
 
Sci said:
In my studies, it seems like 99% of shoulder problems stem from some sort of imbalance. Eric Cressey is awesome in this area.
How is your external rotator strength? How about scapular muscles, do you do any serratus pushes or rhomboid work? I had a bad shoulder for years, and finally found that the impingement for me was caused primarily by an imbalance, a very weak supraspinitus and shut-down serratus on the right side. Focusing heavily on strengthening and activating those weak areas for a few months did wonders for my shoulder. Now I just maintain with some scap-pushes and side laterals to keep those weaknesses from returning.

I basically found the problems by testing each individual shoulder muscle using EXRX kinesiology chart. By finding my weaknesses and bringing them up, my impingement slowly disappeared.... mind you, it wasn't overnight, it took a few months of rehab work to get my shoulder back in balance.

If you can afford it, see a shoulder specialist to diagnose it...wishing you well bro.
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Appreciated, sir. In my case, the pain in my shoulder is actually posterior, and I think might be infraspinatus. It's entirely plausible this is being caused by some sort of imbalance, and I actually like the logic you just outlined above. I think I am going to try including extra additional external rotation work in general, though I fear I may have to abandon some of my lifts in favor of stuff that doesn't hurt.

I also have a chance to join a gym for the first time in years, so my options for exercises will be increasing. My current thinking is that I may replace low bar squats with high bar squats again (since these don't seem to irritate my shoulders), and I could always default to dumbbell work for the upper body, which I am guessing won't bother me as much. We'll see, though.
 
Lol said:
That shoulder issue sucks. Hope you can get to the bottom of the problem.

Having only recently started back squatting again I'm fairly sure that my left shoulder somehow gets irritated by the way the load acts on it while squatting when I get up into <10RM territory. I'm not really aware of it while I'm lifting, but it lets me know about it the next day. Then I have to do a ton of stretching, foam rolling and ball rolling to help. Front squats don't cause the problem at all.

I'll see if it feels worse again tomorrow after tonight's back squats.
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PS Are you doing high bar squats? I believe you are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO3rv5vHy00

Not sure if you've ever tried it, but strapping up high bar squats actually works pretty well. I even put clamps at the outside borders of the straps so they don't move. Note that this doesn't work very well for low bar, but works like dynamite for high bar, and is a much easier position on the shoulders. I may actually use this variant myself, given the shoulder issues.
 
mikeynov said:
Appreciated, sir. In my case, the pain in my shoulder is actually posterior, and I think might be infraspinatus. It's entirely plausible this is being caused by some sort of imbalance, and I actually like the logic you just outlined above. I think I am going to try including extra additional external rotation work in general, though I fear I may have to abandon some of my lifts in favor of stuff that doesn't hurt.

I also have a chance to join a gym for the first time in years, so my options for exercises will be increasing. My current thinking is that I may replace low bar squats with high bar squats again (since these don't seem to irritate my shoulders), and I could always default to dumbbell work for the upper body, which I am guessing won't bother me as much. We'll see, though.
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Yeah , a good idea to avoid anything that hurts while you are rehabbing. I had to avoid flat benching entirely while I was fixing my shoulder. I could only do decline bench and dips for awhile. Now that my shoulder is balanced I can flat bench with zero pain! Very psyched about that. Shoulder pain really ruins a workout.
 
Sci said:
Yeah , a good idea to avoid anything that hurts while you are rehabbing. I had to avoid flat benching entirely while I was fixing my shoulder. I could only do decline bench and dips for awhile. Now that my shoulder is balanced I can flat bench with zero pain! Very psyched about that. Shoulder pain really ruins a workout.
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PS As a weird sidenote, the easiest way to actually trigger pain in my left shoulder is to do something like a reverse dumbbell fly for the posterior delts, which (again) makes me think it's an infraspinatus problem. Stated differently, "rehab" shoulder exercises might actually hurt worse than "normal" shoulder exercises.

However, L-flyes and external rotation in which my arm isn't horizontally abducted doesn't seem to be a problem, and I will probably continue doing these.
 
Saturday, November 10th, 2012

Deadlift (Adidas + belt + hook)
Warmup
315 x 5

Press (Adidas + belt)
Warmup
120 x 5,5,5

Cable Rows
155 x 5,5,5

Seated DB External Rotations (slow/continuous tension)
8 lbs x 20 per side

Notes:

The deadlifts went reasonably well, though felt heavy due to not having deadlifted 315+ in probably half a year. This definitely wasn't a 5 RM, but wasn't easy.

The presses were definitely starting to get grindy, and surprise surprise, my shoulder was a little wonky. This is kind of sad on several levels as 120 should be pretty ****ing light, considering I've done 140 for sets of 5 across. To add (another) injury to insult, on my last set, I somehow tweaked my neck and am currently in pain when moving my head around. Good times.

I'm not sure what to do my next session. At the moment I am thinking I should probably adopt high bar in lieu of low bar, and may drop the overhead press. I will probably continue this cycle on Monday (first 3 weeks of a linear progression), and possibly change my template up next week to A) capitalize on joining a new gym and B) allow my shoulder to heal.
 
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I think you should stop mulling it over and just make the changes before you get even more injured. That's awesome that you are joining a new gym, having a good gym is a real advantage. Depending on what equipment they have, you can likely build a routine that will keep from bothering your shoulder. Have you tried a lever squat machine yet? Sometimes those can be easier for sciatic type irritations.
 
Totentanz said:
I think you should stop mulling it over and just make the changes before you get even more injured. That's awesome that you are joining a new gym, having a good gym is a real advantage. Depending on what equipment they have, you can likely build a routine that will keep from bothering your shoulder. Have you tried a lever squat machine yet? Sometimes those can be easier for sciatic type irritations.
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I agree. At least for awhile, it may be a good idea to use some machines, and avoid all the traditional lifts that are exacerbating the injuries. You can get a good functional workout using alternative lifts that don't hurt. It seems a lot of chronic lifting injuries stem from guys stubbornly doing the same old barbell lifts that are hurting them. A lot of it is from all the old school, macho barbell mentality that is so prevalent (Rippetoe for example) that basically say that you are a wuss if you don't do your whole workout with a barbell. If barbell benching hurts, overhead barbell pressing hurts, and barbell squats hurt...then maybe a barbell workout is a bad idea for you, at least for awhile.

A glaring example of this "must use barbells" mentality, is by reading starting strength and practical programming, it becomes pretty obvious that Rippetoe is a genius at programming and strength coaching, but his understanding of kinesiology, and safe, effective alternatives to barbell strength training is quite poor. He makes dumb statements about alternative lifts such as "decline benching is a totally useless exercise" and other such nonsense, he seems to especially despise machines, despite their laboratory proven effectiveness at developing strength. But in real life strength training, Leg Presses, single-leg squats, dumbell presses, flies, cable machines, hammer-strength machines, nowadays there is such a huge alternative to barbell lifting, there is really no reason to use a barbell as the primary strength training gear, especially if it is giving you problems.

Even if your ultimate goal is a big barbell powerlifting total, it may actually help you to to take a break from these lifts for awhile as you focus on your injuries, weak points and building some muscle strength using alternatives.

P.S. I know you are a very smart guy, Mike, and yiu already know all this stuff, but sometimes hearing from someone else helps anyway. I really would like to see you defeat these injuries and get your big 3/4/5 total! :)
 
I appreciate the votes of support, guys. My current thinking is to restart Wednesday with a slightly different set of lifts, basically a group of lifts that I know do not irritate things. I will probably be abandoning barbell benching and overhead pressing for the time being, but may use dips as a primary pushing movement as this doesn't seem to be a problem (perhaps due to the neutral grip / comparatively external rotated position with parallel handles? not sure). My hip/hamstring/sciatic whatever actually seems alright at the moment, it tolerated 315 x 5 without an issue so deadlifts should still be an option. The only thing that hurts in the squat is my shoulder so switching to high bar there ought to fix that, perhaps even the strap idea if necessary.

Of course if I can't even support these exercises I would be open to doing other stuff, dumbbells, machines, leg press etc. I'd much, much rather do those lifts than literally nothing, and agree that Rippetoe writes them off prematurely. It's funny, I've been reading some old Arthur Jones stuff recently and, despite all the problems with HIT, I really do feel he was one of the more compelling strength authors of all time wrt his early stuff. In a lot of ways very old HIT (Nautilus Bulletin 1/2 era) shares many of the same features as HST, as I recall pointing out many years ago, and I doubt it's a coincidence that he noticed this sort of routine worked very well.
 
Dips are awesome. Pecs, front delts and triceps all get strained very hard when done properly. If I had to do one "press" for all three of these muscles for the rest of my life, I would probably go with dips. I have been focused on benching lately, but I think I am going to put dips back in my routine somewhere.
 
Sci said:
Dips are awesome. Pecs, front delts and triceps all get strained very hard when done properly. If I had to do one "press" for all three of these muscles for the rest of my life, I would probably go with dips. I have been focused on benching lately, but I think I am going to put dips back in my routine somewhere.
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Dips do, indeed, rule. Here's about as far as I got in them a couple years back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU8VodCzqZg

Given that I am considering joining a gym, I am debating keeping barbell bench press in. I'm not sure I've clarified, but benching itself doesn't actually hurt my shoulder (i.e. during the motion). Bizarrely what hurts my shoulder in the bench is unracking the weight, and usually only during a warmup set or two. I have a feeling this is probably due to the low bar squatting beforehand, and prior to throwing my back out (and when my shoulder was actually worse), I was tolerating daily benches.

Given that the gym I'm going to join no doubt doesn't have a good dip station (I haven't been in a few years, but the stations at most gyms are horrible and way too wide, imo dips should be more shoulder width, similar-ish to gymnastic ring dips), I may just wind up doing close grip benches or something. Or, if those do prove painful, dumbbells. I'll have to decide.
 
Maybe if you are lucky, your gym will have a bench where the arms swing out, you push the bar up, and they swing back. Those benches are awesome, no idea what they are called, but they are hard to find in gyms. Totally removes unracking the weight from the equation and makes it way easier on the shoulder. Of course a partner can help too, but that's not something you can always depend on.
 
My feeling and experience is that machines very often force a person to use a motion path that is not ideal for their anthropometry. Not all machines are as adjustable as they should be. This is where free weights win out every time IF the lifts are performed with a form that doesn't cause joint problems. However, that is easier said than done: it has taken me a long time to hone my bench technique to the point where I no longer bring on pain in any areas of my shoulder complex. I'm sure it's not perfect yet either, but it is much, much better than it was.

I'm a fan of dips too. One of the reasons why I feel dipping can be such a good movement is because you are not forced into using an unnatural path of motion. However, we are all aware that there are many different ways to dip. In my case, I have settled on a comfortable hand spacing and I always try to ensure that my scapulae are reasonably well adducted (shoulders back) so that my shoulders are as stable as possible (like I do when benching). I use a comfortable amount of hip and knee flexion. If I do wide hand spacing dips, I bring on shoulder problems, especially with added load. This works for me.

I always found Arthur Jones' approach to muscle building very interesting; he just didn't have as complete an understanding of the science behind it that we do now. His Nautilus machines were very well designed but cost a small fortune, so not many gyms had them. Also, the whole Nautilus-cam idea—where the load is constantly varied in an attempt to match the varying contractile force produced by a muscle along it's contractile length—turned out not to be necessary for maximal muscle growth.

I'm all for finding movements that don't exacerbate an issue, whether that be using machines or free-weights. In my case, I think I have caused more problems for myself when using machines than I have using free weights. Shoulder issues due to using free-weights have always been due to my form not being great; when I've done a little research and altered it, the problems have gradually gone away. I did have to lay off benching for about six months due to an AC joint issue which is when I swatted up on what might be a solution to the problem and sorted my form. Now my form is improved, the problem hasn't recurred.
 
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mikeynov said:
PS Are you doing high bar squats? I believe you are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO3rv5vHy00

Not sure if you've ever tried it, but strapping up high bar squats actually works pretty well. I even put clamps at the outside borders of the straps so they don't move. Note that this doesn't work very well for low bar, but works like dynamite for high bar, and is a much easier position on the shoulders. I may actually use this variant myself, given the shoulder issues.
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Thanks for the link.

Yup, high-bar for a while until my left shoulder toughens up again. I haven't tried holding on to the bar with straps. Interesting technique. I have some new Ironmind straps on order so I may give it a go when they arrive. As an aside, Max Aita is a total squat beast, even with an injured shoulder.
 
Day 1 of a new lifting cycle...

High Bar Squat (straps, oly shoes, belt on work sets)
95,115,135,155,185,205 x 3 (no belt)
215 x 3 (belt)
235 x 1 (belt)
215 x 8 (belt)

Pause Bench
Empty bar x 10 (to get the shoulder weirdness out)
135,155,185,200 x 3
220 x 1
195 x 7 (decided 200 was slightly too heavy to start, a wise move)

Chins
Me,Me+ 45,Me + 70,Me + 80 x 3
Me + 105 x 1
Me + 80 x 8

DB External Rotations
10 x 10,8 per side

Back Extensions (hyperextension bench, pauses at top and bottom)
Me + 40 lbs x 15

Latenight additions:

Dips
Ring dips for warmup
Me x warmup on parallel bars
Me + 80 x 9

More DB External Rotations
10 x 12/side

Notes:

A re-rebirth, I guess? I decided to start around an ~8 RM in everything, and to hit each lift thrice weekly. The logic is basically warming up via triples to the intended work set (i.e. I planned to squat 215 for 5+, so I warmed up to 215 x 3), a single ~5-10% over my intended weight, then one "hard" set of ~9 RPE at the intended work weight. The extensive warmup is a way to get a bit more practice/workload in, but one hard-ish set done frequently is one of the fastest ways I've ever found to increase my strength. I used a variant of this to get my bench, chin and squat strength largely back within like ~3 weeks last year. Since I know I can't safely overhead press at the moment, this allows me the opportunity to specialize in only a few lifts.

The DB External Rotations with a slightly heavier weight (10 lb dumbbell) confirmed to me that my left side, the painful side, is noticeably weaker than the right. The exercise itself actually felt good, it was just a sense of weakness in that shoulder. This tracks with what sci said above, that whatever the root cause, the external rotators in that shoulder are weakened. The most straightforward way to correct that, in my mind, is A) to focus on a set of lifts that are pain-free and B) work specifically on the strength deficit via targeted exercise. This runs contrary to Rippetoe's "compounds heal everything" mindset, but I'm going with AJ on this one - there is no more direct way to strengthen a muscle than to use an exercise which directly targets what it actually does.

In terms of the pain itself, the squats with straps were definitely an excellent idea, I felt no real pain/discomfort here. Bench and chins I felt a twinge or two, but nothing remotely bad. My past experience is that removing movements which directly hurt (in my case, low bar squats and overhead press) should allow things to slowly heal on their own, though I'm hoping "slowly" will be modified with direct work for the external rotators thrice a week. We'll see, of course.
 
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