Dsher10’s BodyBlog

I have been following my altered workout program around my injured rotator cuff. The injury is about healed, but still painful in certain positions and with heavy weights. So it’s still holding me back, as I don’t dare push to my limit for fear of re-injury. Both my trainer and I feel I would be nearing my 315 bench goal by now if I had not injured myself. Now that goal is still months away.

I have added a shoulder workout on my lower-body days. I have been experiencing strength gains in many of my isolation movements, plus noticing improved shape and definition (as well as hardness) in my triceps, lats and shoulders.

I find this slowed pace of training very frustrating. However, I will continue trucking on… a time will come when I can again charge ahead full-bore.

Of course it’s difficult to keep up a rigorous routine through the holiday season, but I think I did fairly well, missing only two workouts and straying not too far from my food plan. Frustratingly, my workouts are still limited by my healing rotator cuff. Also, my daughter and I were rear-ended and our car totalled on Jan 3rd. Of coures, my chiropractor says "lay off the weights for a while to give yourself a chance to recover." I’m getting tired of hearing that phrase! So, it’s MORE time off, AGAIN. Grrr!

I am also having a challange lowering my bodyfat below about 20%. My six-miles/week cardio doesn’t do it, but I’m not convinced increasing the cardio will have that much effect. I’m still working on the issue. I’m also not sure what my 8 lb or so weight gain is from; I doubt it’s all muscle, but it can’t be fat either, as my %BF has remained fairly constant. I don’t know.

Lower body-wise I am still testing for my maxes. I pushed up 16-plates (720lbs) for 10 reps last time (I could have done more), and I’m pretty sure I can handle 20 plates (900 lbs) or even more, but don’t want to hurt myself, so I’m taking it slow.

Back and bi workouts are going pretty well, as they don’t usually engage my shoulder. I plan some one-rep max curls near the end of January to see where I stand; I hope I have improved from my pr-workout 120 lb curl.

Chest and bench are still work-a rounds. I can handle “warm-up” weights now (i.e., 150 lb benches) without too much strain to my rotator (a vast improvement from not being able to even raise my right arm!), but going above that still results in some discomfort, and we don’t want to do ANY re-injuring. Due to the nature of the injury I find pressing inclined less stressful than pressing flat or declined. I CAN do intense triceps work, so I’m focusing on building my tri’s up as much as possible durring this recovery period (encouragingly, my trainer actually seems impressed with my triceps). It appears I will require another month or two of careful work before I can begin blasting the benches again.

Frustrating!