Fit and fine by Kamal Singh CSCS: Return to training after a shoulder injury

The shoulder is the most mobile joint of the human body and is probably the most injured joint after the knee. Statistics show that almost 70 per cent of the people training with weights or playing sports will injure their shoulders. Thus, the chances of injuring are pretty high but the good news is that if you follow a proper rehabilitation plan, as devised by a competent rehab professional, you should make a full recovery and return to your training in the gym.

So your shoulder got injured, you went through the process of seeing a doctor and were diligent about properly rehabbing the shoulder. The pain and the reduced mobility has drastically reduced but how do you restart your upper body training programme?

Do you pick up from where you were before the injury? This is the route most trainees take when they return to the gym since they are in a hurry to get back to looking “buff and jacked”. If you do that then the wheels tend to come off and you could re-injure yourself!

Pain gone but are the tissues ready?

The pain might not be there and the joint might be feeling okay but the soft tissue may not be ready for loading through the entire of motion of the joint. Thus, loading up the bench press and “repping” it out may not be the way to remain injury-free. Before I give you the protocol that I use for my trainees recovering from a shoulder injury, I am assuming that they continued training the rest of their body while they were rehabbing their shoulders.

Just because one part of the body is injured does not mean that you can not work on the rest of the body to keep it fit and strong. This leads to a faster recovery and mitigates muscle and strength loss that would result from being injured, while empowering the trainee who feels that things are under his/her control. A win-win situation if you ask me.

Take it slow and easy to get back to where you were before the injury, advises Kamal Singh
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The return to exercise protocol

The first exercise is the isometric incline push-up hold. Get into a push-up position on a bench – hands on the bench and feet on the ground. Unlock your elbows and lower your chest about three-four inches toward your hands and hold this position. This is an isometric exercise and you need to actively resist the pull of gravity.

Do this exercise for a week or so before moving on to a dumbbell floor press. The floor press reduces the range of motion but still manages to properly overload the pushing muscles – chest, shoulders and triceps. The dumbbell lets you focus on both sides of the body unlike a a press with a bar. Stay with this version of the press for two-three weeks before progressing to an incline dumbbell press, then to a dumbbell bench press and then finally the barbell bench press.

The first exercise is the isometric incline push-up hold
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Hurry slowly

As you can see there are a number of steps before you can safely start barbell bench pressing again. Take it slow and easy to get back to where you were before the injury. Its important to remember that recovering from an injury is never a straight line. So, many times it’s good to take two steps forward and one step back. Stay with with each exercise till you are comfortable being in the position with load in your hands then go to the next step. Be patient and reap the benefits.

Stay with with each exercise till you are comfortable being in the position with load in your hands then go to the next step
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To summarise:

•After rehabbing a shoulder injury do not rush back to doing the barbell bench-press.

•The joint might have healed and the pain diminished, but the tissues might not be ready to loaded through the entire range of motion.

•The protocol – isometric incline push-up hold, floor-press, incline dumbbell press, dumbbell bench-press and barbell bench-press.

Loading up the bench press and “repping” it out may not be the way to remain injury-free
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•Go slow while moving from one phase to the next.

Try this approach and let me know how it goes….

Kamal Singh is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist who has been coaching for 15 years

From HT Brunch, September 6, 2020