Shoulder rehab... yay

If you can say one thing about me, you can say that I am swift. Yeah, I am freaking quick on the uptake. 

For instance, you may remember that not quite a year ago, I went through a few months of physical therapy with Results Physiotherapy (recommended, by the by) for my back/shoulder issue. This seemed to do quite a bit of good as far as stabilizing the upper back and shoulder and getting the area loosened up.

You may also remember that not too long ago, I started getting some biceps tendinitis that, since I am a medical expert far and above my peers (for some reason that bit from The Pirates of Penzance keeps going through my head), I attributed to shoulder dysfunction. This is typically exacerbated by pressing, and after the other night's squat session seemed to be really flared up. 

 

Note that (the royal) we started the video with crazy eyes. Best.

Yes, that audible click is my shoulder at the "bottom" of every press. 

I also noted the other day, while doing some band pull aparts, that my left shoulder was about a half inch to an inch higher than my right. 

Noice.

So guess who has two thumbs and hasn't been keeping up with his shoulder rehab properly? 

Just goes to show you- just because it feels okay, doesn't mean it is okay. 

So with that in mind, I ran through the initial sets of banded shoulder work last night- basically a 2x20 each of a low row (straight arm), mid row (arms bent at 90°), and a "W" external rotation. In PT, we did these with TheraBand tubes with the nifty attachment set up, but this can easily be replicated in the home with EliteFTS micro and mini Pro bands and an attachment point for MUCH cheaper- though as an aside, the TheraBand set had some much lighter tension bands in it than even the EliteFTS micro pro band, so if you are really jacked up or your joints just aren't strong enough to take it, the TheraBand set up (or even some of their flat bands) would be better. I found that I had to use their heaviest band in my run of "official" PT, even with my injury being relatively fresh. Your mileage may vary.

For these I used the EliteFTS orange micro band passed through the handles on the door of my refrigerator and I pulled at an angle that didn't cause the doors to open. Worked like a champ. I just need to be sure to keep these up, and I will expand it a bit more to get back into the full "routine" from PT over the next week or two, plus shoulder circuit on lift days.

Yay.

Keep up with your rehab and eat your Wheaties (tee em), kids. Admittedly, I did NOT eat any Wheaties (tee em) yesterday, but I did have a little over 3700kCals with 325g + of protein and still managed to drop a pound from yesterday morning. 

Booyah for water weight!