Suggestions on lifting regime with rotator cuff problems

[Death_Mallard]

I am a college baseball player and roughly 3 months ago I injured my right rotator cuff while attempting to become a pitcher, unfortunately I found out the hard way that catchers can't be pitchers... With that being said I am very limited on the exercises that I am still able to perform without further injuring myself. I am currently interested in finding out lat, chest, and back exercises that can be performed without aggravating an already injured rotator cuff. Since the injury, I have noticed that the very upper part of my chest, above the armpit has lost considerable amounts of muscle on my injured right side, but there has been little difference to my uninjured left side. Just wondering why that is and how could I correct it? Any suggestions on the above topics would be greatly appreciated...

[aussiejuicer]

I tore all the ligaments in my AC joint and needed surgery and jumped back into the weights a little too soon and tore my rotator cuff slightly. Its taken me over a year and i'm still on anti-inflammatory medication. But i've found to minimise pain i always exercise my rotator cuff muscles after a workout and on my days off. You can do this by using the cable crossover machine at your gym. You want to strengthen as well as build endurance in those muscles so they can support your shoulder during your more heavier lifts.

The main thing you want to concentrate on is keeping your shoulder blades under control by keeping them back pinned together and your shoulders down in every exercise you do. You'll find this will isolate your chest more during benching. With training back, you can substitute your wide grip chin ups for ones where you keep your palms facing together (can be done with pulldowns too) as opposed to an underhand grip which can also aggravate the rotator cuff.

[aussiejuicer]

One more thing, you might want to switch to machines for a while until the pain subsides and you feel comfortable training with free weights.

[bad_man]

I tore all the ligaments in my AC joint and needed surgery and jumped back into the weights a little too soon and tore my rotator cuff slightly. Its taken me over a year and i'm still on anti-inflammatory medication. But i've found to minimise pain i always exercise my rotator cuff muscles after a workout and on my days off. You can do this by using the cable crossover machine at your gym. You want to strengthen as well as build endurance in those muscles so they can support your shoulder during your more heavier lifts.

The main thing you want to concentrate on is keeping your shoulder blades under control by keeping them back pinned together and your shoulders down in every exercise you do. You'll find this will isolate your chest more during benching. With training back, you can substitute your wide grip chin ups for ones where you keep your palms facing together (can be done with pulldowns too) as opposed to an underhand grip which can also aggravate the rotator cuff.

I agree with all of this advice. I tore mine in my freshman year of football and continued to get burners throughout my career. To emphasize what aussiejuicer said:
1) continue to rehab your rotator cuff, building up endurance
2) PROPER FORM IS CRITICAL.

[stout]

Yep, I played ball in college too man. Took a couple of months to rehab it. Do your rubber tube exercises and go VERY LIGHT on weights with more reps. If you ever feel sharp pain stop lifting. Even when I took 5 months from lifting I gained back all my muscle really fast. It took hard work and good nutrition, but you'll be fine. DO NOT run too much while not lifting. I Thought I would be staying in shape , but this is where I lost alot of muscle. Do a little cardio and eat your protein. Where you at? Good luck bud.

[Death_Mallard]

I am currently doing about 7 or 8 different tube exercises for rehab, but I haven't done them for a few days because of pain. I first injured it back in early March, but continued to play until the end of April with constant pain, then I saw a doctor. After many ultrasound treatments I'm finally scheduling an MRI to see how extensive the damage is. In regards to previous posts, I was advised againsnt bench pressing, chin ups, lat pulls, basically anything with an overhand movement... I believe I further injured it in April by continuing my workout regime with benching and the sort at the time, but have since stopped. Just not sure on which workouts to do that don't require the use of the rotator cuff...