Thread: Shoulder workouts and subacromial impingement

Hello, long time lurker and almost never poster here. Please bare with me as I actually have a question at the end for those of you here who I know from reading are very educated in physical therapy and injury related exercise, etc. :: Thank you.

I'm not a body builder, but I have kept in shape using weights pretty much my whole adult life. Several years ago I suffered from subacromial impingement, which after failed treatment such as therapy, anti-inflammatory meds, and cortisol injections. Ultimately I had a subacromial decompression laprascopy and all has been fine since.

Now its the other shoulder's turn. Looks like I'm in for a similar, if not identical experience.

Now I don't lift heavy, and I read up to make sure I'm doing safe exercises correctly, and I believe I do. I never suffered any traumatic injury, these things just started as a slight, annoying tenderness that progressively got worse. Even injured, I maintain most my strength and relative comfort while exercising as long as I'm warmed up and avoid a limited range of motion where the impingement occurs.

So the Doctor says that at my age (42), due to probably a combination of years of overuse combined with a genetic predisposition for impingement (shape of the shoulder bones or something like that), that I should avoid overhead lifting or I'll just keep having problems.

So how can I maintain upper body workouts, shoulders in particular, without overhead exercise? Most the exercises I'm familiar with are related to overhead movements; Arnold presses and incline presses in particular for example.

I appreciate your input and taking the time to read all this.

TC

Thanks for the article link Pirate, good reading.

gtbmed, I never played sports. Just weight training, cardio, and some boxing/grappling type sports (although not heavily). I did do some stupid lifing when I was young, especially on the bench. Maybe I'm paying for it now, I don't know.

I read about the cleans, I tried some lightweight hang cleans today just to try them out. I liked them, and they didn't hurt anything. If I do them right and see results, I suppose I'll work them in regular.

Thing is, I've had a handful of basic exercises that I've become accustomed to doing over the years, same basic shit you see most everyone else in a gym do. So I'm kind of learning these new exercises, some of which seem to be used mostly by more serious or even competitive lifters; its like learning all over again.

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it.