Injury of right shoulder - a chance to get symmetrical?

[pelleasnem]

So I injured my right shoulder while doing incline dumbbell bench presses. Could I just carry on with left-only shoulder and arm exercises? After all, my right bicep is 12.75" and my left is 12". Has anyone else used an injury to get symmetrical?

[Al Swearengen]

im doing that right now and yes it's a great idea. i believe also being able to be in the gym and keeping everything going that you can, helps gets through injury's much better.

[Nainoa]

So I injured my right shoulder while doing incline dumbbell bench presses. Could I just carry on with left-only shoulder and arm exercises? After all, my right bicep is 12.75" and my left is 12". Has anyone else used an injury to get symmetrical?

If I were you I'd worry more about getting the right shoulder looked at...

If you have an injury that's significant enough that you think you can gain .75 of an inch before it's healed... Chances are you need medical attention!

When I hurt my shoulder I tried to carry on with just the left...

Sucked, and never really got a good workout in...

Instead I spent 8 months focused on Cardio and legs...

The reality's are thus:

1. Working your legs is going to be more beneficial to building your arms than doinking around with your only good arm.

2. Once you have both arms back at full power... If you keep working they will balance out...

I started out at 12" and 12.75" in Nov of 2003...

And now something like 2 years removed from when I finally got back to strength on my shoulder and both arms are sitting at 16.5"

Your body balances out over time... You just have to heal, and keep at it from there.

[pelleasnem]

If I were you I'd worry more about getting the right shoulder looked at...

If you have an injury that's significant enough that you think you can gain .75 of an inch before it's healed... Chances are you need medical attention!

Well, I'm not sure if it's serious. I hope not anyway. It's not particularly painful... more uncomfortable. If I slowly windmill my right arm, clockwise if you are looking at my right side, then the top of my shoulder muscle pops/clicks/grinds when it gets to about 'seven o'clock'... ie my arm pointing towards the tips of my shoes and swinging upwards... actually, it's a little painful if I do a Lateral Raise movement with the arm.. What does that indicate?

Perhaps I should go to a doc after all...

[Al Swearengen]

1. Working your legs is going to be more beneficial to building your arms than doinking around with your only good arm.

but i'm having much fun doinking around with my good arm.

what i have been doing is some leg work and left side stuff, but my situation is about 6 months total so leaving my left side go weak isn't an option. i need my left side stronger now more than ever.

[Nainoa]

Well, I'm not sure if it's serious. I hope not anyway. It's not particularly painful... more uncomfortable. If I slowly windmill my right arm, clockwise if you are looking at my right side, then the top of my shoulder muscle pops/clicks/grinds when it gets to about 'seven o'clock'... ie my arm pointing towards the tips of my shoes and swinging upwards... actually, it's a little painful if I do a Lateral Raise movement with the arm.. What does that indicate?

Perhaps I should go to a doc after all...

Okay... I can't picture exactly the motion...

But I have an inkling that what you're describing is an AC injury...

To tell... Try these motions...

1. Point straight up, as if a child was asking you where Heaven is.

2. Put your palm on your inner thigh (While Standing) and make a shrugging motion.

3. Put your hand on your bad shoulder onto the top of your good shoulder.

4. Now with your hand still on that shoulder, point that bent elbow up.

If those 4 motions hurt... It's an AC injury... (AKA Separated Shoulder)

There are 6 grades of Separated shoulder.

Grade 1 and 2 are basically extreme strains, with some minor damage that should heal in 2-4 weeks time.

Grade 3 (My Initial Shoulder injury that spawned my trouble) 75% of the time requires surgical intervention... I was in that 25% luckily...

Though it still will take 10-12 weeks (Assuming you have no complications) for the Grade 3 to heal... As Grade 3 is where the AC ligament tears, and needs to refusion.

Grade 4-6 you wouldn't have as you'd be in the hospital screaming in pain, begging the doctors for Demoral or Morphine.

*****

The most common complication associated with AC injury (And this is the one that really bit me in the ass) is Osteolysis AKA "Weight Lifters Shoulder"

Essentially the bone starts rubbing the distal clavical, and causes the area to inflame and the bone distorts... Causing a kind of arthritis.

Over time, a mild to Moderate case, with ample rest will heal... Inflamation will go down, and bone resorption and bone remodeling (Body's natural skeletal processes) will return things to normal.

In some moderate and almost all severe cases of Osteolysis you'd require a distal clavical resection... Where they removed 5-10 mm of the distal clavical, and then over the course of 4-6 months fibrous scar tissue forms in the area...

While the shoulder will function like new... Almost ever DCR recipient that I've met claims that "It still doesn't feel right."

In my case, through a 14 month Oddessy I managed to hit all the odds that would break the friggin' bank in vegas. (Grade III and Moderate Osteolysis... Followed by a Grade 1 and a Grade 2 separation during my comeback when I was "Pushing it.")

****

What to do:

You can speed the healing process with: REST... Go to the doc, get a referral to an Orthopedic surgeon... The Ortho will most likely request an MRI Arthrogram, to ensure that there is no collateral damage to the Labrum.

The MRI/Arthrogram is a horrendous experience... They jam a needle the size of a pole barn nail in your shoulder... Then inject you with radiolydic dye... And stuff you in a tiny MRI tube... Blasting you with magnatism until your urine stream is more polarized than a refridgerator magnet... You piss butane for a day... While you hug your knees in the shower feeling violated...

Then they call you in, and they give you a deep joint cortisone injection.

This is the Male equivalent of childbirth... I would rather **** a bale of razor wire into a pool of battery acid, that causes "Splash Back" than have another Deep Joint AC injection. (I've had 3 and they don't get any better!)

A Regular GP doesn't have the training and skill to do a proper deep joint AC injection.. They can only get sub Cutaneous... And a SubCue injection of Cortisone for an AC joint is like Jerking off to an episode of Dark Angel and saying afterwards that Jessica Alba is your girlfriend.

Yes it will hurt... Yes you will see stars... Yes it feels like your shoulder is about to explode from the venom of a thousand wasp stings... Yes it even brough me to my knees and I almost passed out.

^^^^That's as candy coated as I can describe it.^^^^

*A Note on cortisone... It will run it's course in 6 weeks...

3 weeks will be better and good healing... And for 3 weeks after that, the connective tissue in the area will be weaker, and you'll be more prone to injury while those tissues "Tighten up."

[Nainoa]

but i'm having much fun doinking around with my good arm.

what i have been doing is some leg work and left side stuff, but my situation is about 6 months total so leaving my left side go weak isn't an option. i need my left side stronger now more than ever.

What did you end up doing to your shoulder?

****

What was a big factor for me when it came to working the good arm, was that I strained it a little doing some 1 arm pulldowns...

Nothing major... Just a tweak that healed in a couple of days...

But it made me think... "Hmmm... What happens if I do something moderate to seriously bad with this arm?" (Especially since I lived alone at that time.)
Visions of wiping my ass with toilet paper on a stick assaulted my mind.

So I just kept working legs how I could... Did a little bit of cutting... Because really when you get back after it, the lower your body fat, the more your body is encouraged to add muscle above and beyond the atrophy you've built.

****

The truly strange thing...

After all the time I spent using my right arm as little as possible... There are now some tasks that I used to do right handed... That I awkwardly taught myself to do left handed...

And now I can't get my Right to feel right when doing them.

For instance, I can't open pop bottles (Or anything twist off) with my right hand... Only my left...

[Al Swearengen]

What did you end up doing to your shoulder?

****

ended up having surgery for a supraspinatus tear. they also did a subacromial decompression as well, it was on December 20th so i have a little less than 5 months to go.

[Nainoa]

ended up having surgery for a supraspinatus tear. they also did a subacromial decompression as well, it was on December 20th so i have a little less than 5 months to go.

Oooof...

That sucks...

There is a "Bright Side" though to a long lay off like that...

When you finally get back in the gym a 100%, you will feel like a kid in a candy store...

The gains feel like you can see them almost daily.

For me... Even after I quickly returned to my previous size... I still had some noob gains for almost 4 months afterwards.

In fact if I was to sit back and think about how my gains were coming slowly in those days, and then the transformation I had during that period... I would have to say that the come back from my shoulder injury is the thing that kicked me up from XL to XXL

Good Luck Bro!

[Al Swearengen]

Oooof...

That sucks...

There is a "Bright Side" though to a long lay off like that...

When you finally get back in the gym a 100%, you will feel like a kid in a candy store...

The gains feel like you can see them almost daily.

For me... Even after I quickly returned to my previous size... I still had some noob gains for almost 4 months afterwards.

In fact if I was to sit back and think about how my gains were coming slowly in those days, and then the transformation I had during that period... I would have to say that the come back from my shoulder injury is the thing that kicked me up from XL to XXL

Good Luck Bro!

thanks dude, yeah im looking forward to coming back in a big way, just want to make sure i get this rehabbed properly, then look out.

[jeremy1ns]

I injured my shoulder in the gym tonite doing incline bench. It popped out of socket and felt like something tore. I am going to the doctor tommorow. ^How bad was ur shoulder injury to have to have surgery.

[stevensgym]

Have you read "7-Minute Rotator Cuff Solution" it helped from benching 180#'s or so, to in-less-than 3 months, benching 225 for a set of 10, 8, & 6 reps.
You can get it at home-gym.com. Best book investment I've made.

[redbackspider]

Glad I found this page. I think I have the grade 1-2 deal with my right shoulder from incline dumb bells presses. I have pain from 3 of the 4 steps described, i.e. pointing up, winding my arm backwards in a clock like motion. It does not hurt when I work out, but it gets sore afterwards, and it is a soreness that is not that of w/o soreness. When you say legs will help your arms, i have read that leg w/o's really stimulate GH release and help the rest of the body grow??

Sucks getting injured. I have gone from 240 to 213 since December 5, 2007, and was going to cut down to 200, then start a clean bulking, but now my upper body will be off by 3-4 weeks unless it is more serious than I know.

[shindehans]

hello guys,
my name is hans. i was taking creatine (prolab monohydrate) 4-5 months back. but it did nt seem to bring out any change in my body, though i used to do quite heavy workouts everyday. i have quite a lean body. and at that period i also increased my diet considerably, but still the product was'nt at all effective.but it only increased my stamina(i was able to exercise with heavier weights), thats all. please tell me the reason and guide me on this. THANKS.