I have recently started my 68yo father on SSLP. He had rotator cuff surgery about a year ago. He went through all of the typical post surgery PT and has been cleared for normal existence for approximately 4 months now.
We are about 8 sessions in. His biggest physical struggle has been in attaining the low bar position on the squat. He has gone home and worked with a broom stick which has helped in getting the flexibility necessary in his shoulders. About a week ago he told me that he was getting some pain during non-lifting times right where he had pain prior to rotator cuff surgery. This has become a bit more frequent to where I am concerned.
Generally I would think this is flexibility based but since it is localized to where his previous injury is I just don’t know what the right move is. I have thought about changing his hand position to a thumbs around for squatting. I have also thought about not having him squat but perform all of the other movements for a brief period of time to see if that eliminates the pain.
Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
I think putting someone like this post op into a low bar squat is probably a mistake unless they can do it relatively pain free or have significant experience doing it previously. I’d have him high bar in place of low bar or, alternatively, safety squat bar if high bar does not alleviate symptoms.
Are you wondering if there is a risk to his repair? That is healed by now. Being one who had RC surgery myself, it took quite a bit of work (and some discomfort) to get to the low bar position. I started with the SSB and then high bar, and even when I was first low bar squatting, my grip was insanely wide.
I’ve struggled with tight shoulders and something that’s helped me is that before each squat session, I begin with a set of 5 standard presses with the empty bar then a set of 5 behind the neck. My working weight for the press is almost certainly higher than your fathers though, and follow the Doc’s recommendations before mine.