Tweaking Rep Ranges

A

abbot138

New Member
Recently injured shoulder. Assumed the worst (SLAP tear, rotator cuff, etc). Turns out I have early signs of arthritis and have a small piece of cartilage in joint, significant sharpening at top of humerus bone already, not good at age 32. Long story, short....Doc says no more "heavy" pressing. Wants me to keep my rep ranges higher, even then Im probably still screwed, but Ill deal with that when time comes.

Question is, i just started HST and I love it, if I wouldve start this 10 years ago I probably wouldnt be in this situation. But I dont feel comfortable doing the 5 rep range on pressing exercises (bench, dips, any shoulder press). Would it be extremely detrimental to the program if I did 8's instead of 5s on those few exercises?
 
No that is fine.

Check out Mikeynov's log here on the forum, he has a torn rotator cuff and he developed an awesome HST program to fix his shoulders and uses higher reps also. I recommend you read his log carefully and mimic his training.
 
I too have cartlidge build up, in my ac joint. I couldnt train for over a year. I visited a naprapath and did various treatments. I took cortisone jabs that helped momentarily but the pain always came back. I was devastated that I may not be able to lift heavy again. My world was upside down. My girlfriend, at the time, was a physiotherapist and she showed me many exercises to help build up strength and also get blood to the affected area.

I did the routine(regime) every day for a few months and slowly but surely it got better. I can now lift heavy. Heavier than befor in some instances and I dont feel any pain any longer. Im obviously not aware how your condition will progress. I can say that its very easy to feel the build up on my ac through my clothes on the left side so in my case the build up wasnt slight but Ive managed to relieve symptoms.

The rubber bands were my best friend for a long time. The inward turning movements seemed to help the most, although I did outward too. I can still feel it crunching sometimes but it doesnt bother me any longer.

I feel for you. Hope you can get it to a managable state.
 
Sci said:
No that is fine.

Check out Mikeynov's log here on the forum, he has a torn rotator cuff and he developed an awesome HST program to fix his shoulders and uses higher reps also. I recommend you read his log carefully and mimic his training.
Click to expand...

I will absolutely do that. Thank you!
 
gbglifter said:
I too have cartlidge build up, in my ac joint. I couldnt train for over a year. I visited a naprapath and did various treatments. I took cortisone jabs that helped momentarily but the pain always came back. I was devastated that I may not be able to lift heavy again. My world was upside down. My girlfriend, at the time, was a physiotherapist and she showed me many exercises to help build up strength and also get blood to the affected area.

I did the routine(regime) every day for a few months and slowly but surely it got better. I can now lift heavy. Heavier than befor in some instances and I dont feel any pain any longer. Im obviously not aware how your condition will progress. I can say that its very easy to feel the build up on my ac through my clothes on the left side so in my case the build up wasnt slight but Ive managed to relieve symptoms.

The rubber bands were my best friend for a long time. The inward turning movements seemed to help the most, although I did outward too. I can still feel it crunching sometimes but it doesnt bother me any longer.

I feel for you. Hope you can get it to a managable state.
Click to expand...

Very good to hear! Thank you! I have an appointment with a DPT next week that comes highly recommended. Im hoping he will be able to show me some usefull stretches and RC exercises. Mine is nowhere near as bad as yours and is basically just in the beginning stages. No real pain or limitations, just a lot of clicking and grinding and an overall uncomfortable feel. Hopefully I can head it off now before it gets much worse. Thanks again.
 
abbot138 said:
Recently injured shoulder. Assumed the worst (SLAP tear, rotator cuff, etc). Turns out I have early signs of arthritis and have a small piece of cartilage in joint, significant sharpening at top of humerus bone already, not good at age 32. Long story, short....Doc says no more "heavy" pressing. Wants me to keep my rep ranges higher, even then Im probably still screwed, but Ill deal with that when time comes.

Question is, i just started HST and I love it, if I wouldve start this 10 years ago I probably wouldnt be in this situation. But I dont feel comfortable doing the 5 rep range on pressing exercises (bench, dips, any shoulder press). Would it be extremely detrimental to the program if I did 8's instead of 5s on those few exercises?
Click to expand...

Not detrimental at all to keep the rep ranges higher. I think HST is actually a great program for people with problems like this as most of the loading is submaximal and you get ~9+ days completely off between cycles.

My suggestions for a guy with a screwed up shoulder:

* Figure out why you hurt your shoulder. This could be form-related, obviously. I.e. make sure you have good pressing mechanics in stuff like benches, dips, overhead press and so forth.
* For the time being, don't use any movements which cause noticeable aggravation to the area. This is a fine line, but anything that causes lingering pain afterwards should be excluded for the time being.
* With a set of exercises which don't seem to bother the shoulder, proceed as above, perhaps keeping the rep ranges a little higher (something like 15's --> 12's --> 8's would be fine, for instance).
* Try to actively rehab the area. Figure out if you have disparities between sides in stuff like shoulder external rotation, for instance. Do PT-ish exercises to help correct these. No need to be aggressive here - perfect form, very slowly incrementing the loading over a larger period of time.
* Consider pushups - I throw in some pushups a time or two a week as they seem to help train stuff other pushing exercises don't, most noticeably serratus anterior. Obviously these will be implicitly higher reps, and there's no reason to go crazy here.

Just some thoughts and how I'm addressing my own shoulder injury. Best of luck.
 
mikeynov said:
Not detrimental at all to keep the rep ranges higher. I think HST is actually a great program for people with problems like this as most of the loading is submaximal and you get ~9+ days completely off between cycles.

My suggestions for a guy with a screwed up shoulder:

* Figure out why you hurt your shoulder. This could be form-related, obviously. I.e. make sure you have good pressing mechanics in stuff like benches, dips, overhead press and so forth.
* For the time being, don't use any movements which cause noticeable aggravation to the area. This is a fine line, but anything that causes lingering pain afterwards should be excluded for the time being.
* With a set of exercises which don't seem to bother the shoulder, proceed as above, perhaps keeping the rep ranges a little higher (something like 15's --> 12's --> 8's would be fine, for instance).
* Try to actively rehab the area. Figure out if you have disparities between sides in stuff like shoulder external rotation, for instance. Do PT-ish exercises to help correct these. No need to be aggressive here - perfect form, very slowly incrementing the loading over a larger period of time.
* Consider pushups - I throw in some pushups a time or two a week as they seem to help train stuff other pushing exercises don't, most noticeably serratus anterior. Obviously these will be implicitly higher reps, and there's no reason to go crazy here.

Just some thoughts and how I'm addressing my own shoulder injury. Best of luck.
Click to expand...

Great notes! Thanks for taking the time to post. Oddly enough I tweaked it unracking the bar for flat bench. Switched gyms recently, my old gym the rack came away from frame so you could just lift and start ur set. I hadn't reach over head for a bar in a while, wasn't even a heavy weight, 265 or so. It seems to be getting better, but as I said doctor told me its more of a long time, probably going to get worse situation. Im just going to drop the lower rep ranges, not do anything that hurts like you mentioned, and also like you mentioned become more familiar with PT exercises. Flexibility needs to improve big time. Have been doing the sleeper stretch a lot since this happened and it seems to already be helping. This was actually a bit of a blessing, no tears and potentially caught it early enough to save my shoulders long term with only a few tweeks. 100% agree with your take on HST. The sub-maximal lifting and scheduled de-conditioning will be a God send for my entire body. My body has never responded well to high volume any way. Thanks again.
 
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