northback’s BodyBlog

So the past 6-9 months have been a challenge.  I took advantage of the down time to work on my back and arms.  With a labral tear, I opted to try PT before surgery.  After about 5 months of intensive work- and now combining it with targeted massage work at the PT clinic- my shoulder is almost back!  Horizontal pulling has saved my ass- new emphasis now on BB rows, Seated Rows, Hyperextensions, Closegrip Pulldowns, Tricep Pushdowns, and especially mid/lower trap work has done wonders for my shoulder.  I will never skip these important exercises.  I’ve enjoyed some success with Animal Flex and am now adding Super Cissus to my regular supplement list.  I’ll report back on my progress, but it looks good so far.  Hoping to get back to benching and delt pressing in another 30-45 days or so

A few weeks ago I felt/heard a pop in my right shoulder doing a bench press.  Never had any issues with that before - still had full range of motion but had some aggravation in the joint.  Finally got my arthrogram results back on the shoulder and the good news is that it was not a SLAP tear as my ortho originally thought possible.

However, I do have "torn cartilege - about 2cm" and shoulder is a out of place a bit.  Doctor described it as between 3:00 and 5:00 if picturing my shoulder as a clock. 

Appointment this week for one more physical diagnosis and then I’ll he’ll either prescribe PT or recommend arthroscopic surgery to tighten down the shoulder and pull it back into the joint.  Anyone else have experience with this?  I’m more concerned about a slipping shoulder joint and how that will affect my lifting / sports in the long term.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling great at the end of a workout.  Felt like I might have a bit left in me so I decided to go for it with one set of heavy inclines.  Went a bit too heavy and my right arm pinched.  No popping or anything, just kind of tweaked.  Brushed it off, went home and the next day awoke to some nagging pain.

Did the ice, advil, heat thing for a while - and went back to doing rotator cuff exercises.  Seemed to work well and loosen up my shoulder.  Things were getting back on track.  Still couldn’t focus on incline or decline DB’s so stuck with flat barbell pressing.  Shoulder workouts later in the week went good - sticking with BB.

Now after a few days off, went back to Chest day to test the incline and developed some pain.  I’m positive that this is from a rotator cuff strain - so have decided to focus on abs, cardio, and arm exercises that do not affect the area.  Real bummer because it always seems when I’m about to break some barriers and make some serious gains -some stupid thing happens.  Oh well, lesson learned I guess. 

Plan of attack now is to focus on Rotator Exercises, stretching and rest.  Will include some focus on abs/arms/legs on exercises that do not affect my right shoulder.  Also plan to get some massage work done on the affected area.  In two weeks, I’ll start light and evaluate my progress.

I’m also in debate on staying with the anabolic diet.  I find it very effective when lifting heavy, but if I am not able to lift consistantly I don’t think the diet is the right one for me.  I’m sticking with it for now, but will decide on any diet changes as I receive feedback from my shoulder.

edit: Added a few pics in my workout journal (bottom page 4) from the mtn cardio

Got out on my first couple ski tours in while last weekend.  Saturday felt like a race - but we managed to get first tracks onto almost every face, even with all the crowds racing up the bootpacks and skintracks to try and nab firsts.  Sunday pretty much whooped me - been a while since I did a solid ski tour and knocked out close to 5000 feet of climbing.  Snow was pretty deep so that added to the uphill challenge.  But what a fantastic weekend for late April.  So good that i’m changing up my workout schedule this week so I can try and grab a few after work tours this week.  Hoping to get about 2000 feet tomorrow, fingers crossed the weather stays cold!  lovin it.

It’s funny - I find the friend request option amusing.  While it’s a flattering when someone sends you a friend request-  it’s kind of annoying when there is no message content.  If you look at some profiles, there are peeps that are stalking over a 100+ profiles at the same time.  What’s the point?  At least a note saying "hey, nice job on the lats" or "we’ve got similar stats, i’m interested in your progress" - just something simple.  I have a hard time clicking accept on generic friend requests that have no value or meaning.  I’m adjusting some of my list because when someone has 1000 friends or stalking a mass amount of others, it’s kinda ghey.

If I use the friend function, I typically am looking for people of similar interest or builds- that I’m interested in their progress or gaining insight from (okay, double standard for me here cause with the ladies, it can also be that they are lookin’ fine, heh)

Curious as to other forum members thoughts on the whole friend request deal.  I’m all for networking, but at least make an attempt to personalize an intro.  There should be a little substance, right? 

Well,

I made it though the first 35 days.  Results have been pretty good overall, but I’m going to try and tweak the diet a bit over the next two weeks.  I am thinking about adding a small carb up prior to workouts- though strength has been consistant, I’ve noticed my endurance is affected the most.  Adding Xtend really helped, but looking back on my workouts when I was using SuperPump- those were by far the most productive (stacking SuperPump with SizeON and Xtend).  SP has 8g of carbs - and if I factor in a before serving and after serving of Muscle Milk- I’m at 24g of carbs.  I will probably add in a few carbs for breakfast.  Probably shoot for a total of 40g carbs/day.  When summer gets closer and I do a 3 week cut, I’ll trim the carbs back down to 20g or less per day for max impact.  I’ll post some before/after pics sometime in the next couple of weeks.

looks like the next few days i’ll be putting in a lot more ‘cardio’

3 feet of snow on top of the Passes and another couple of feet on the way.  Time to get the skis ready and schedule my ’sick’ day from work.  May have to adjust my carb loading days to Thu/Fri this week since I’ll be skiing Thu-Sat-Sun.  Hopefully we’ll get some good pics to upload.

Pretty good session overall tonight.  Worked Chest/Lats. 

You can check out my new log in the workout journal or link through my sig.

A bit overexcited today because of both the stressful day at work combined with anticipation for the new split.  Over the weekend got in plenty of cardio- did two days of nonstop lift served skiing, followed up with a nice backcountry ski tour climb of about 4000 feet on Monday.  Great to get the blood flowing and nothing better than being out in the sunshine climbing a remote peak.  Back up to Stevens Pass and Alpental this weekend for more skiing- but until then a couple more gym sessions to prep for.

Time to change things up a bit - any advice or feedback appreciated as I move from a 6 days split toward a 4-5 day split:

all rep range targets 6-8 (except chest- more 5-6 rep range for power)

day 1: chest/lats
day 2: legs/abs
day 3: Shoulders/traps/triceps
day 4: Back/Delts/Biceps/abs
day 5: Misc Day- will rotate in extra days as needed
cardio: 4 days/week skiing
3 days/week running/swimming (combination high intensity and low intensity)

Supps:  SizeOn, SuperPump, Muscle Milk, Ultimate Peptide, Animal Pak

Goals:  continue to reduce body fat, increase strength and endurance
that’s the basic sketch right now, still refining it.

Taking the week off to relax and recover.  Onlly exercise this week involves a ton of skiing powder.  Still finishing up details on a new workout program to start beginning of next week to include a good mix of lifting, cardio, and skiing.  Stoked that winter is here - just seeing the mountains covered in piles of white gets me amped. Yes yes, happy new year.