Torn Rotator Cuff

gkempf

FNG
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Apr 23, 2015
Messages
62
Going in for repair surgery next Tuesday. For any of you guys that have been through this, what kind of exercises did you do to help strengthen your shoulder after and how did things go when it was all said and done. Thanks.
 

cg2737

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Jun 4, 2015
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Finger lakes, NY
I had a complete tare, partial tare and a detached bicep tendon. It took me about six months to get back to full and strenuous duty. Your surgeon will have you go to physical therapy to learn exercises that will strengthen your shoulder. The first week or so you will not move your arm at all. I believe it was six weeks before I started physical therapy. You will not be able to lift your own arm when you first start. Take it easy and do what they tell you. The last thing you need is to tare it again. Good luck.


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gkempf

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Apr 23, 2015
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I had a complete tare, partial tare and a detached bicep tendon. It took me about six months to get back to full and strenuous duty. Your surgeon will have you go to physical therapy to learn exercises that will strengthen your shoulder. The first week or so you will not move your arm at all. I believe it was six weeks before I started physical therapy. You will not be able to lift your own arm when you first start. Take it easy and do what they tell you. The last thing you need is to tare it again. Good luck.


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Where you ably to achieve full motion of your arm after six months? Thank you for the reply.
 

steve s

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Feb 12, 2014
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Gypsum, CO
Lots of variations with cuff tears. We have 4 different post-op rehab protocols that vary quite a bit depending on the size of the tear. Do you know what is torn and how big the tear is? Shoot me an email at [email protected] and I can send you the post-op protocol that we would use. Your doc may have a specific protocol he wants you to follow, but this can at least give you an idea. Not sure if I can attach a pdf to a post??? Best wishes - ss
 

cg2737

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Finger lakes, NY
Yes, I am a year and a half out of surgery now and I feel great. Even after the six months is up and you have full range of motion you really need to be cognizant of what you're doing.


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cg2737

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Jun 4, 2015
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Finger lakes, NY
When I started shooting bow again I used my son's mission craze and dropped it back to like 30 pounds and work my way back up to 60.


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robby denning

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Yes, I am a year and a half out of surgery now and I feel great. Even after the six months is up and you have full range of motion you really need to be cognizant of what you're doing.


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24 years working in a health club around many of these post-op surgeries and can't agree more. Just 5 weeks ago watched a guy 2 months post-op do too much and guess who had to have a second surgery! Just follow the doc/physical therapist and be conservative. Better to take a few months extra to heal than to have to start the friggin' process back over.

Most guys come back pretty strong after this surgery in time.
 
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gkempf

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Apr 23, 2015
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Great advice Robbie. Am feeling better than I should be. Therapy is going Great. Not near as bad as I have been told. Going to follow Docs/theropist rules to the t.
 
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Probably the biggest thing you'll want to focus on after your rehab is to keep the shoulder strong from there on out. I tore my cuff and partially dislocated my shoulder in high school during a wrestling match. No surgery. It gave me fits through my late 20's because I didn't take care of it, and at one point in my early 30s I was about ready to give up archery hunting.

I bought an e-book (a novelty at the time) about rotator cuff rehab, and I religiously followed the program for 6 months, at which point I was completely pain free. I do lots of pull ups and I've learned to modify things like bench press and pushups to reduce the stress on my rotators. Form is critical for you on your upper body exercises. If you don't lift weights, you should be.

I'm 45 and my rotator cuff rarely ever gives me issues anymore, despite a pretty good calcium deposit on top of my AC joint. During or after your workouts if it hurts, get some ice on it immediately to get the inflammation down.
 

Marmots

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Sep 15, 2018
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Idaho
I tore my rotator cuff about four years ago, losing a brazilian jiu jitsu match in the most spectacular way possible.

It took about two years to recover to the point I could shoot a 35lb recurve long enough to practice. I never got surgery but was certainly a candidate for it.

I did a lot of things wrong so please learn from my mistakes:

1) Find a good physical therapist. The first physical therapist I saw was an overweight older person who spent most of their billable time telling me how irresponsible I was for participating in fighting sports. I ditched them when I moved back to the Mountain West and started going to a physical therapy place full of active folks who treat a lot of sports and mountaineering injuries. They were optimistic and excited about my recovery. More importantly, they were involved. Because they were excited about the activities I wanted to return to, they kept an eye on my progress and scaled and adjusted the exercises and treatments.

2) Be patient. The muscles and tendons surrounding the rotator cuff are small and don't get a lot of bloodflow or nutrients. It's going to take a little while for them to recover. It will take longer than you would like, but your bowhunting career isn't over.

3) Swallow your pride when doing recovery exercises. I had been doing a barbell program leading up to tearing my rotator cuff. At the time I couldn't comprehend how doing rows with yellow slingshot bands could benefit me when I could barbell row 135lbs in a 5x5. Well, elaborating on the two previous points - I got a good physical therapist willing to explain things to me, and they said that the point of all of the light band work was to gently flush blood and nutrients into the small muscles of the rotator cuff and to increase proprioception in those damaged areas. Now I'm recovered and doing barbell work again to strengthen my shoulders. However, I still do a lot of the recovery excercises that the good PT taught me. After a heavy barbell set I'll do a bunch of pre-hab excercises, doing 5lb front raises with pride.

4) Pay attention to your Lats and Traps. The largest muscle groups in your upper body are eager to compensate for your diminished shoulder strength. This is an unsustainable long term solution and a big part of recovery is training your muscle groups to know their place again. You can't retrain your rotator cuff muscles if your lats and traps are going to step in and do the work instead. A PT will probably use graston or electroshock to prevent your lats and traps from locking up. This is just something to be aware of during your recovery program. I wasn't aware, and overusing lats and traps allowed me to lift a silly amount of weight and fool myself into thinking I was recovering.
 
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