Three months ago, I (male, 50 years old) developed shoulder pain and could no longer raise my arm overhead without pain. I thought I had upper biceps tendinopathy. Since then, I haven’t been able to do bench, overhead press, rows, chins or barbell squats. I continued doing hex bar deadlifts because I didn’t experience any pain with them. But after the pain worsened and my shoulder joint mobility decreased, I finally went to the doctor and had an MRI.
The results are as follows:
"Mild osteoarthritis in the acromioclavicular joint. Tendinitis and partial tear of the supraspinatus tendon on the articular side. Tear in the anterior superior labrum involving the biceps anchor. Thickening of the joint capsule in the axillary extension.
Assessment: Tendinitis and partial tear of the supraspinatus tendon. SLAP lesion type 2. Tendinitis of the biceps tendon. Signs of capsulitis."
The doctor prescribed a gentle treatment with 20 days of cortisone tablets in a decreasing dose, and for the next 14 days, I should avoid any athletic activity on my shoulder before starting physiotherapy. He said the SLAP lesion could be surgically repaired, but it wasn’t necessarily required.
If it hasn’t improved in three months, I should come back. I told him I work out at a gym, but I don’t think he’s aware that I do deadlifts there.
Now my question, in the hope that it can be answered:
Since I had no pain during deadlifts before the 14 day training break, but can’t rule out that the deadlifts might have worsened the situation, can I continue hex bar deadlifting after the 14-day break, or am I risking a complete tear of the biceps tendon or its anchor? Could the lambrum tear worsen?
Markus,
Thanks for joining the forum, though I wish it were under better circumstances. I am limited by what we can do via the forum re: diagnosis and management, and this should not be considered medical advice.
If it were me, I would not have an issue with deadlifting, though having pain afterwards is not a great sign that your current programming (volume, intensity, etc.) is set up in a way to make the deadlifting tolerable.
Without overstepping, the interesting thing here is that the imaging findings you mention (type II SLAP tear w/ partial supraspinatus involvement) is pretty common at 50, often present in pain-free shoulders. Complete rest and a course of steroids is not something we’d typically advise, but we also did not have the benefit of examining you or having follow up.
In any case, I would have no problem doing some deadlifts after 14-days, provided they are well tolerated. I would not take 14-days off of exercise, as there are certainly things you can do that don’t load the area, i.e. 1-arm presses, rows, leg press, split squats, step ups, hamstring curls, and the like.
I do think this is one of those things that would benefit from speaking with our pain and rehab team, and if there was ever a good time to do it, it’d be now. We have a 10% off sale that goes through tomorrow, if interested. Use code SUMMERFIT.
Further reading
Hi Jordan, thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed and thoughtful answer. I will definitely consider your suggestions. It was very helpful.
I now remember that the doctor mentioned that the SLAP lesion isn’t related to the pain and limited range of motion I’m experiencing. Instead, it stems from the capsulitis (frozen shoulder), which typically takes 18 months to heal. The cortisone tablets are an attempt to break the inflammatory cycle of the capsulitis.
Thank you for the unique work you do with Barbell Medicine.
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Copy that. Sometimes it’s hard to do this via forum because there’s usually more information needed. Thanks for the kind words. Let us know if we can help.