Meths Return To Weights With Gimpy Shoulder Action!!!

meths

meths

meths

Soldato
Joined
12 Mar 2005
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I've been away from weight training for years now as I was struggling with injury so started doing muay thai and running instead. I'm 6'2" and over time my weight has dropped from about 14st 7lbs to 13st 5lbs and my once majestic muscles have wasted away to nothing. :(

I've decided to get back into it so signed up to a gym last week and started a 5x5 routine I found on the net (not stronglifts but similar) as I'd never tried it before and fancied something a bit different to ease me back in.

My initial goal is to get my weight up to 14st and fill out a bit around the arms, chest and shoulders. I'm not bothered about a bit of flab about my mid section so am eating about 3050 calories a day. I'm also not bothering with macros atm as it's hard enough to keep eating stuff and I'll refine things as I go.


I can't remember ever injuring my left shoulder but I've had a long standing problem with it that stopped me lifting weights all those years ago. I get no pain from it at all when I'm not training and don't seem to have limited motion but after my second session in the gym it's starting to play up so I've got an appointment with my local doctor to get referred to the physio and hopefully get it sorted out once and for all.

The problem stops me hitting the left hand side of my chest properly and means I end up with a noticeable imbalance in the size of my pecs and arms. I've tried fixing it by using dumbbells and structuring my workouts based on what my weaker side can do but it doesn't make any difference. It seems like my left hand side just doesn't work properly. :)

Anyway this is just for background and isn't a thread seeking medical advice, I'll see the doctor for that. :D

I'll post back later with my stats and a couple of before photos of my skinny ass.
 
Thanks, I'll check out the form thread but, and I don't want to sound big headed here, but I doubt form is the problem. Maybe it was at one time but I've issues with the shoulder for over 10 years and had people check my form while dropping back to hardly any weight.

Plus it affects me on nearly any exercise that involves my left arm and I've had bother with it during the years I wasn't even lifting.

I expect it's a rotator cuff thing but I've tried strengthening it myself with no luck so maybe not.

I've got an appointment with the doctor on the 15th where I'm going to ask for a referral to the physio who'll then refer me to a specialist if he can't fix it but in the meantime I'm just going to be extra careful.
 
Week one finished and I'm sore all over:

Day 1
Deadlift 105kg 5,5,5,4,4
Bent Over Row 45kg 5x5
Barbell Curl 30kg 5,5,3,3,2

Day 2
Bench Press 45kg 5,5,5,3,3
Shoulder Press 25kg 5,5,5,4,2
Assisted Dip (not sure how much weight offset) 5,5,5,5,4

Day 3
Squat 75kg 5x5
Romanian Deadlift 65kg 5x5
Wide Grip Chin Up - Palms facing away (assisted) 5,5,5,5,4

Shoulder update:My shoulder was bothering me after day 2. It was clicking all the time and I had intermittent pain on the rear of my shoulder. I'm not sure what happened but after day 3 and specifically the chin ups it feels fine. I feel tightness along the top of my latissimus dorsi on that side and it's sore to press on the bottom of my left shoulder blade but the clicking has mostly stopped and it feels like my whole shoulder joint is more stable. I may just be imagining an improvement but I don't usually do those chin ups so will monitor things going into week 2.

Gained 2lbs in weight but I feel like I'm constantly eating. Now 13st 7lbs.

I can't believe the difference in my arms after just 3 sessions. Noob gains ftw!!!
 
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I hadn't intended posting after each individual workout but went to the gym tonight and it was a disaster from the start.

I went in confident from last week and started by bumping my deadlift up to 110kg. I tweaked my back in the first set as I hadn't warmed up properly. It's not that sore that I had to stop but I had to be extra careful from this point so as not to make it worse. Unfortunately by set 3 my grip was giving out. The bar was twisting as I was picking it up and I was ending up having just my 4 fingers on each hand holding the bar like a couple of hooks. By the end of set 5 I couldn't even pick the bar up for one rep and as my back was sore I abandoned it at this point.

I moved on to the bent over rows and loaded 47.5kg on to the bar as I had managed 5 sets of 45kg the last time. I got started and could hardly pull the bar anywhere near my body after the third rep. I took the extra 2.5kg off and tried again after a rest and could still hardly lift the weight.

Turns out I hadn't been paying attention to the weights and had initially loaded the bar with 57.5 kg. My back was getting sorer by this point so I dropped the weight back to 40kg and finished the last 3 sets.

I then did 5 sets of hammer curls and these went okay.


I think I'm going to have to drop my deadlift weight back to 80kg and build up slowly as my grip gets stronger as this was just a shambles today and I could easily have dropped the weight.


So I'm thoroughly demoralised, annoyed and am going to have a sore back tomorrow. Brilliant! :(
 
Can anyone give me some ideas for some quick snacks to bump up my calorie intake?

I'm getting tired of filling the gaps between meals with fruit and brown bread toast and peanut butter.
 
Week 2

Day 1
Deadlift 110kg 5,5,5,3,0 -Dropping back to 90kg next time to work on my grip.
Bent Over Row 40kg 5x5 - Need to work on form and slow the reps down.
Hammer Curl 12.5kg 5,5,5,5,3 - Alternating this with Barbell Curls each week.

Day 2
Bench Press 45kg 5,5,5,4,3 - Only managed one extra rep in set 4.
Shoulder Press 25kg 5,5,5,5,5 - Decent progress. 27.5kg Next time.
Assisted Dip 5,5,5,5,5 - Good. Change offset from 6 to 5.

Day 3
Squat 80kg 5x5 - 80kg easy but was getting pain in my right knee.
Romanian Deadlift 70kg 5x5
Wide Grip Chin Up - Palms facing away (assisted) 5,5,5,5,5. Good. Go from 8 to 7 on machine.

Gained 1lbs this week and am now 13st 8lbs.


Apart from the problems in day 1 I've made some progress in every exercise although only 1 extra rep in the bench press is disappointing but as this is the exercise most affected by my shoulder I'll take it.

I'm going to start rotator cuff exercises at home on my rest days with light dumbbells to see if it improves things and cancel my doctors appointment for now because my shoulder actually feels better than it has for ages. I can always get another appointment later if it takes a turn for the worse.
 
I'm going to stop weighing myself for a while.

My weight has dropped back to below where I started even though my arms and chest are looking a bit bigger.

I was starting to obsess over it a bit.
 
Day 1
Deadlift 85kg 5x5 - Too easy. Grip was fine but I'll build it up gradually.
Bent Over Row 42.5kg 5x5 - Better form this time.
Barbell Curl 30kg 5x5

Day 2
Bench Press 45kg 5,5,5,5,4 - Completed the last set but the last rep was poor so doesn't count.
Shoulder Press 27.5kg 5x5
Assisted Dip 5x5 - Change offset from 5 to 4.

Day 3
Squat 85kg 5x5 - Knee was fine. Decent form.
Romanian Deadlift 72.5kg 5x5 - Need to be careful here as I've been getting back pain. I hurt my back last week and haven't given it enough time to heal.
Wide Grip Chin Up - Palms facing away (assisted 7) 5,5,5,4,3.

Overall good improvement in the bench, row, curls but I need to watch my back as I tweaked it last week when struggling with my grip on the deadlifts and obviously haven't let it heal properly.

No pain from my shoulder at all and my left side is strengthening although there is a clear imbalance in the muscles on my left and right sides.
 
Can't be bothered typing my workouts out on here all the time but as of this morning I am now just over 14st.

Booya!!!

Shoulder is still gimpy and I still have a muscle imbalance on my left but it seems managable and even though I've piled on 9lbs my gut isn't any bigger.

Next stop 14st 7lbs by the end of August.
 
Good session yesterday.

Bench is up to 55kg and I did a couple of reps at 70kg.

Overhead press up to 35kg but I've definitely got more in the tank.

Did my dips without any assistance from the machine which is good but that gives me a problem. Now I need to increase the weight and don't have a belt to attach weights to.

My thinking is that I should introduce another exercise that targets similar areas to the dip, but what can I use? I don't really like dipping between two benches with weight plates on my legs as I seem to spend more time on balancing the weight rather than concentrating on the exercise.

Also, I'll likely still finish off the session with some dips but now that I can do my 5x5 unassisted should I just finish with something like three sets to failure each time?
 
23rd June

Squats 95kg 5x5
Romanian Deadlift 65kg 5x5 - Low weight as I'm protecting my lower back after injury.
Machine Assisted Pullup 5x5 at level 6 -Wide grip. Palms facing away. Tried unassisted and couldn't shift my fat ass

Squats are starting to get hard but it didn't help that I'd been on holiday for a fortnight and didn't have access to a squat rack or equivalent leg press machine.

It was the first time I thought "Damn I might not be able to stand up here!". Got some funny looks when I let out a noise like "GNNNNYYYYYAAAAH!!!!!!" as I pushed up. Dread to think what I'll be shouting once the weight gets really heavy. :D
 
Off to the gym shortly and not sure what to do.

I saw a guy about my back and shoulder pain and he said it's all essentially coming from a tear of the fascia at my hip that's not been allowed to heal properly. After some light massage to the area and some repositioning of my pelvis he's prescribed rest and Voltarol gel for the inflammation.

Anyway, today is deadlift day and I was going to substitute them for some upper body exercise until my back feels 100%...or at least 80% but now I'm thinking that I'll just stick 10kg on to a bar and video myself going through the motions so you guys can critique my form.

Quite disheartened at this point as I was really starting to see a difference and not just the big gut I've grown in the last 8 weeks.
 
Thanks Delvis.

Ended up just leaving the deadlift video for now as I can't perform the movement with no weight without any discomfort.

It was a bit tricky doing bent over rows yesterday but I got there in the end and don't seem to be suffering any ill effects this morning.
 
Delvis said:
So it feels more muscular based then? Might just need some loving.

See if you can book in to a decent physio :)
Click to expand...

To be honest I can't really tell whether it's muscular or not.

It's an old injury from when I used to compete in triple jump many years ago and it relates to the left side of my pelvis moving up and out of position.

I think I will book a physio appointment because I'm not convinced the guy I saw about it actually did anything. He an osteomyologist and I went there on the recommendation of various people I know who swear by him. I had about 45 minutes of hands on treatment but felt like most of it was just for show and any perceived benefit would be as a result of a placebo effect and starting on the Voltarol gel. Don't get me wrong, a lot of what he said seemed to make sense but it does feel a bit like it's just £50 down the drain.

The trouble is, the last few times I've been to see a physio I felt the same. I went to the sports injury clinic in Hampden Park about my shoulder and after 45 minutes the physio said "Your symptoms are very interesting but I've no idea what the problem is. Do these stretching exercises for 10 days then come back and we'll see if there's any difference". £35 quid to be told he didn't know what was going on. :(
 
Delvis said:
Do you do much core work?
Click to expand...
Not really anymore as I thought the deads and squats would take care of core strength.

I used to do plenty of sit ups, leg raises, good mornings, side bends and things like that but even then there has always been the underlying problems.

Edit: I've kind of resigned myself to the fact that my hip and shoulder aren't going to get fixed so as long as I can find a way to work around it I'll be quite happy. It's just figuring it out initially that's difficult.
 
Decent session yesterday.

Bench - 62.5kg 5,5,5,5,4
Overhead press 37.5kg 5,5,4,3,3
Dips - Loads

Not sure if the heavier weight on the bench press is killing my overhead press or if it's because I switched from seated to standing but I did worse on that one this week.

My back/hip is starting to feel better and I managed some squats with no weight on the bar so I think I should be good to get back into things in another week at maybe half weight on the squat and deadlift.

I'm going to switch to the original version of Stronglifts once I'm fit so I'm squatting in every workout and hopefully strengthening my weakest areas as a result:

Workout A
Squat 5x5
Bench 5x5
Rows 5x5
Dips 3 to failure

Workout B
Squat 5x5
Overhead press 5x5
Deadlift 1x5
Pull ups/Chinup 3 to failure.

If anyone else is doing Stronglifts and wants more information without paying for Mehdi's inner circle membership then check out the Ironstrong forums as there is loads of information on there including plenty of routines for after you finish with 5x5.

And Delvis, I've not forgotten, I'll do some planks even though I hate the damn things. :(
 
I'm back baby!!!

Started Stonglifts tonight.

Workout A
Squat 75kg 5,5,5,5,4
Much lower weight to see how my back is and it was absolutely fine even though I'm not at 100% yet.

Bench 62.5kg 5,5 then 55kg 5,5,4
Dropped the weight down as my form was all over the place, probably because I'm squatting first now and bench press used to be the first exercise in my routine. Trying to concentrate on holding my gimpy shoulder in place during the lift, maintaining tight abs and not arching my back. Will start with 55kg next time until I've nailed the form.

Rows 50kg 5,5,5,5,5
Again, dropped back to see how my back was. It actually gave me a bit more grief on this exercise than on the squats but the weight is far too light to be rowing with so I'll move it up next time and just be careful.

Overall, a decent start to my rehab. :)
 
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