Marcus Aurelius
12-15-2010, 06:01 PM
All,
Apologies in advance if this will be long. I'll only go into as much detail as I think's needed but, since no one I've run across seems to know the exact nature of my problem, more detail's probably better than less.
Without further adieu ...
About this time six years ago, I had a terrible pain in my right upper back, somewhere in the general vicinity of the teres minor. I stayed out of the gym for a couple of weeks. By that time, the pain went away.
Upon returning, I discovered my right side pressing strength was greatly reduced. My training partner and I started a session with Hammer Iso-Incline presses. Even during the warm-ups with a plate, two plates and three/side, I noticed my right side lagged considerably. When we got to our workset, I could barely eek out a few reps with my right side. My left, on the other hand, could keep going with ease.
I was a dirt-poor grad student and didn't have health insurance at the time, so I simply couldn't afford to seek medical advice beyond my general practitioner's.
You can guess what he told me. I got a glib, "Stop lifting those heavy weights" and was sent on my way. (I wish I had the mind and patience for med school. To make $200 for five minutes of useless advice has to be nice.)
Anyhow, I kept plugging away and, four months later, I was setting PRs again, however small.
This November, the pain came back in force -- worse than ever before, actually. I trained through it for a couple of weeks since lifting didn't [seem to] exacerbate things. In fact, a particular chest/back workout actually alleviated the pain for 24 hours or so.
Besides, my strength wasn't diminished, as it had been years earlier; I figured that was a positive sign. And, stupid as it no doubt was, I was riding the best "blast" wave I've had in a long time and I wanted to fully capitalize on that.
We've all been there. When you're gaining that way, you don't want it to end. As the late, great Robert Schimmel once said, if you're banging a beautiful woman and are well on your way to climax, is a heart attack gonna stop you from "finishing"? Heh, no.
But there came a point at which the pain was too consistently great to ignore any longer. I laid out for five weeks and, upon the advice of a physical therapist friend, started rehabbing my right rotator cuff. On a twice-daily basis, he had me do two static/isometric exercises and another movement with light weights -- something almost exactly between a front and lateral raise, with my thumbs facing downward throughout the ROM.
Within 10 days, the pain was gone, but I decided to steer clear of the gym for almost another month. Pound of prevention and all that.
I finally got back to the gym few days ago. I was keen to see if I had a left/right pressing strength disparity, so I jumped back on the Hammer Incline.
Sure enough, when I got to what I consider my standard "working weight" for that exercise after a layoff (for illness, business, girl troubles, injuries -- you name it), I found that I could barely get a single rep with three PPS and some change.
Now, I am under NO circumstances ever strong but, when I'm healthy, I can do that weight for a strict 20. I wasn't surprised that my right was gimped, but I was disappointed nonetheless.
Then, I decided to shift my focus away from pressing both arms at the same time, and I focused on my left side alone.
Sure enough, I knocked out a strict 12-15 reps with my left side with relative ease. After that, I tried the 3 plates + change with my right.
I could budge it, but only barely :(
I reduced the weight on the right movement arm and struggled to do 4 or 5 with a laughable 90 lbs. I cut that down to a single plate and got another 4-5.
It's official, then: whatever happened to me six years ago has happened again, if not to a greater extent.
Since I was already in the gym, I took that opportunity to do some internal and external rotations with a crossover station. I also did the funky "thumbs-down" raise my buddy recommended.
I spoke with him about this and he's baffled. Granted, he's in a very rural Alabama town (how rural? There's been ONE murder there in FIFTY YEARS! I call that rural and then some), and his experience with strength athletes is very limited. Just the same, my bro's a sharp one; he knows his stuff. That he is at somewhat of a loss is extremely disconcerting.
I've posted about this weirdness at other bodybuilding sites, and I've been met with everything from a full dressing-down for using machines (think: a site which prides itself on the so-called "golden age" yet deludes itself about its greatest stars' drug use) to mostly crickets chirping at another [albeit otherwise awesome] forum.
Unfortunately, I'm in the same financial situation I was six years ago -- worse, actually, since I've got house payments I didn't then and two family members depending on me to boot. As such, running all over town for MRIs and sports medicine specialists' input is simply not an option right now. I MIGHT be able to swing an X-ray and/or see [yet another] unenlightened genprac, but that's about it.
The damndest thing is, I feel guilty for making even this "big" an issue about it. The folks I'm supporting -- as well as the rest of our family, which is richer than Croesus but still pinches pennies until they squeak -- simply don't understand that, after 20 years of hard training, this BBing "thing," at least in part, defines who I am. I'm fully over the insecure teenaged days of needing to be the most-muscular cat in the room. For that matter, I really don't give a damn what anybody else is doing anymore; my primary concern now is that I'm healthy and that I can improve upon what I did yesterday.
I digress.
If anyone has a clue as to the nature of my "injury," my odd right-side weakness and how I might better combat it, I'm all ears.
My sincere thanks in advance.
M.A.
______
Senatus Populusque Romanus!
Apologies in advance if this will be long. I'll only go into as much detail as I think's needed but, since no one I've run across seems to know the exact nature of my problem, more detail's probably better than less.
Without further adieu ...
About this time six years ago, I had a terrible pain in my right upper back, somewhere in the general vicinity of the teres minor. I stayed out of the gym for a couple of weeks. By that time, the pain went away.
Upon returning, I discovered my right side pressing strength was greatly reduced. My training partner and I started a session with Hammer Iso-Incline presses. Even during the warm-ups with a plate, two plates and three/side, I noticed my right side lagged considerably. When we got to our workset, I could barely eek out a few reps with my right side. My left, on the other hand, could keep going with ease.
I was a dirt-poor grad student and didn't have health insurance at the time, so I simply couldn't afford to seek medical advice beyond my general practitioner's.
You can guess what he told me. I got a glib, "Stop lifting those heavy weights" and was sent on my way. (I wish I had the mind and patience for med school. To make $200 for five minutes of useless advice has to be nice.)
Anyhow, I kept plugging away and, four months later, I was setting PRs again, however small.
This November, the pain came back in force -- worse than ever before, actually. I trained through it for a couple of weeks since lifting didn't [seem to] exacerbate things. In fact, a particular chest/back workout actually alleviated the pain for 24 hours or so.
Besides, my strength wasn't diminished, as it had been years earlier; I figured that was a positive sign. And, stupid as it no doubt was, I was riding the best "blast" wave I've had in a long time and I wanted to fully capitalize on that.
We've all been there. When you're gaining that way, you don't want it to end. As the late, great Robert Schimmel once said, if you're banging a beautiful woman and are well on your way to climax, is a heart attack gonna stop you from "finishing"? Heh, no.
But there came a point at which the pain was too consistently great to ignore any longer. I laid out for five weeks and, upon the advice of a physical therapist friend, started rehabbing my right rotator cuff. On a twice-daily basis, he had me do two static/isometric exercises and another movement with light weights -- something almost exactly between a front and lateral raise, with my thumbs facing downward throughout the ROM.
Within 10 days, the pain was gone, but I decided to steer clear of the gym for almost another month. Pound of prevention and all that.
I finally got back to the gym few days ago. I was keen to see if I had a left/right pressing strength disparity, so I jumped back on the Hammer Incline.
Sure enough, when I got to what I consider my standard "working weight" for that exercise after a layoff (for illness, business, girl troubles, injuries -- you name it), I found that I could barely get a single rep with three PPS and some change.
Now, I am under NO circumstances ever strong but, when I'm healthy, I can do that weight for a strict 20. I wasn't surprised that my right was gimped, but I was disappointed nonetheless.
Then, I decided to shift my focus away from pressing both arms at the same time, and I focused on my left side alone.
Sure enough, I knocked out a strict 12-15 reps with my left side with relative ease. After that, I tried the 3 plates + change with my right.
I could budge it, but only barely :(
I reduced the weight on the right movement arm and struggled to do 4 or 5 with a laughable 90 lbs. I cut that down to a single plate and got another 4-5.
It's official, then: whatever happened to me six years ago has happened again, if not to a greater extent.
Since I was already in the gym, I took that opportunity to do some internal and external rotations with a crossover station. I also did the funky "thumbs-down" raise my buddy recommended.
I spoke with him about this and he's baffled. Granted, he's in a very rural Alabama town (how rural? There's been ONE murder there in FIFTY YEARS! I call that rural and then some), and his experience with strength athletes is very limited. Just the same, my bro's a sharp one; he knows his stuff. That he is at somewhat of a loss is extremely disconcerting.
I've posted about this weirdness at other bodybuilding sites, and I've been met with everything from a full dressing-down for using machines (think: a site which prides itself on the so-called "golden age" yet deludes itself about its greatest stars' drug use) to mostly crickets chirping at another [albeit otherwise awesome] forum.
Unfortunately, I'm in the same financial situation I was six years ago -- worse, actually, since I've got house payments I didn't then and two family members depending on me to boot. As such, running all over town for MRIs and sports medicine specialists' input is simply not an option right now. I MIGHT be able to swing an X-ray and/or see [yet another] unenlightened genprac, but that's about it.
The damndest thing is, I feel guilty for making even this "big" an issue about it. The folks I'm supporting -- as well as the rest of our family, which is richer than Croesus but still pinches pennies until they squeak -- simply don't understand that, after 20 years of hard training, this BBing "thing," at least in part, defines who I am. I'm fully over the insecure teenaged days of needing to be the most-muscular cat in the room. For that matter, I really don't give a damn what anybody else is doing anymore; my primary concern now is that I'm healthy and that I can improve upon what I did yesterday.
I digress.
If anyone has a clue as to the nature of my "injury," my odd right-side weakness and how I might better combat it, I'm all ears.
My sincere thanks in advance.
M.A.
______
Senatus Populusque Romanus!