What did the doctor say is the best thing to do to heal your muscles, (going the nonsurgical route with a torn muscle)? I would think lots of rest, and maybe some really light-weight, high-rep training to rehabilitate the muscle and get the blood flowing.
The doctor I saw is actually my sister's husband, a sports medicine doc. He actually recommended against surgery, said that his opinion is that shoulders are never the same afterwards, though I suspect part of that is more how laypeople respond, versus people doing full range of motion resistance exercises. Stated differently, I suspect that, even if I do wind up getting surgery, my shoulder would wind up in a better state vs. somebody who just does the PT stuff and never does for real weight training.
He suggested PRP (plasma-rich platelet) injections as a potentially conservative treatment, but otherwise the obvious. Avoid what hurts, give it some rest, try some rehab etc. I'm planning on starting a new exercise routine a week from Wednesday, giving me 2 weeks off since doing any irritating exercises (the shoulder is already feeling pretty good, honestly, even after only a few days off). At that point, I'll start something very conservative. Part of my thinking was to take a break from programming involving fives. 10's might be a better place to be, for now. And quite honestly, what do 5's provide that 10's don't? Probably more boost to 1 RM, but arguably less overall growth. So a simple plan might look something like this:
Upper 1
Cable Row - 10,10,10+
DB Incline Bench - 20,20,20+
Curls - 10,10,10+
Shoulder Prehab - DB External Rotation (Seated, Front) - 20+
Facepulls - 20+
Lower 1
Squat - 10,10,10+
Back Extensions - 10,10,10+
Calf Raises - 10,10,10+
off
Upper 2
Gymnastic Ring Row - 10,10,10+
Pushups - 20,20,20+
Seated DB Curls - 10,10,10+
Shoulder Prehab - DB External Rotation (Poliquin) - 20+
DB Lateral Raise - 20+
Lower 2
Deadlifts - 10+
Pause Squat - 10,10,10+
Calf Raises - 10,10,10+
off
off
Work sets listed, e.g. 10,10,10+ = 3 sets of 10, with the last set taken to something like an RPE ~9. I will probably start with ~15-20 RM's there, and it would go something like 10,10,15 at first. 20,20,20+ is the same logic, but super duper light. I figure dumbbell incline bench press and pushups might be two of the most conservative possible pushing exercises, so I was planning on starting there for very high reps. No vertical anything, as this seems to be the biggest irritant, upper body wise. That and my vertical pulling strength is profoundly ahead of my horizontal pulling strength (e.g. I could probably very quickly train up to a Me + 115 lb chin for 5 reps, whereas my 5 RM in something like a barbell row is probably ~185).
I recall Bryan showing some research that higher reps might have some benefit for connective tissue, which would be ideal in my case. After exhausting the 20's over a couple months or whatever, I will probably bump it down into the 10's range, and start to introduce other conservative exercises, like pulldowns and dumbbell overhead presses for high reps. Maybe.
