Shoulder injury and MMA training?

[Nubster]

Coming from a power lifting background I can assure you I will not be doing any kind of upper body work or any free weight lower body stuff for at least several months. I will likely do some machine leg work like leg presses, extensions, and curls, but that will be it. And hyper extensions and lots of ab work. It will still be a couple weeks before I can do any of that. At this point even walking can be painful as it causes my arm to bounce even slightly. It is getting a little better though and physical therapy starts in a week.

[TheRuss]

Oh, hey, how about hip belt squats? No shoulder involvement at all.

[Big Dozer]

I am a newb having never trained before. I am VERY interested in giving it a try. However I have just undergone shoulder surgery for some cartilage tears in my rotator cuff. This includes two bone anchors. Would this type of surgery/injury be something to prevent me from ever training in martial arts?

Talk to your doctor and physical therapist. I had shoulder surgery and once the Therapist and the Doctor said "No limitations" and I was good to go. I started training again.

[Nubster]

Yeah, I have my first followup and my first PT session next week so I will talk to them about that then just to find out their thoughts. I know it will be several months before I will be able to do much in the way of strength training the shoulder but I am hoping that by then I can at least get started learning the basics.

[Sakmongkol]

Zerchers are not shoulder-safe - the full load of the weight is on the arms, and consequently hanging from the shoulders. Safety squats might be all right, depending on where the bars are sitting and how much control you have.

And if "zombies" are what I think they are, you're saying that putting all the weight directly on top of the injured area is a good idea?

As you put it, "I must disagree."

Zombies rest on the front delts, but they put the shoulder in a natural posistion. I'm not saying they will neccesairly work for the OP they are just one of many ways to work around some shoulder injuries. Zerchers can be used in some shoulder injuries becuase they put less tension on the shoulder than traditional back squats.

These are two ways I currently lift with shoulder injuries becuase traditional back squat is extremely uncomfortable on my left shoulder.

These are both ideas I acrued from Keith Wassung, a pretty awesome powerlifter. He occasionally posts on SnP on sherdog.

I'm not saying which will work for the OP I'm just saying even with a shoulder injury there are many ways of training squats and deadlifts with free weights around such shoulder injuries.

The best bet would probably to sequester a strong platform for your feet involving two raised boxes. Then use a dipping belt and squat using that. This would place no stress at all on the shoulders.

[Sakmongkol]

Oh, hey, how about hip belt squats? No shoulder involvement at all.

Goddamit.

[Teh El Macho]

In case anyone's curious about what a safety squat bar is...



I wish I had one. It might take the load off the shoulder. Emphasis on might.

They do, a lot, by having the arms not extended to the sides. That takes a lot of pressure away, specially with impigment. I've used them before and I wish I could get one of those.

The thing is the surgery. There is still pressure coming down on the shoulders. There is no shoulder movement at all, but there is still pressure. And with surgery, that **** could be just too much to play with.

[Teh El Macho]

Goddamit.

Yeah. That thing is good, I used to use it at Golds Gym eons ago. I"m currently in the process of making one at home (along with two squat stands made out of 6x6s and a shrug cage out of two tricep bars and 2x4's... as soon as I get a life again :P)

One cannot go wrong with a squat belt when dealing with a shoulder injury. The only problem is loading that thing heavy enough while standing on two benches. It can get tricky.