I feel pretty cheeky/greedy signing up just to ask a question, but Im at the end of my rope and hoping for some advice.
The tl;dr version of my question: is the clinician being too conservative (i.e. doing their job)?
History:
39 year old male, 6’2, 213lb. About a year ago I hurt my right shoulder doing warmup sets on the bench (lightweight 150lb range). Lowered the bar too far down towards my stomach, and the rest is history. I self diagnosed (of course!) an ac joint sprain. Fast forward a year of me continuing to train, while also being a moron and ignoring the fact that I havent really been able to sleep on my side. It had gradually gone from dull ache to sharp pain, so I finally went for an MRI: “… prominent oedema in the bone either side of the ac joint with early bone overgrowth and mild periarticular soft tissue thickening” was on the report. The clinician also said there are signs of osteolysis on the outer end of my clavicle. Everything else was normal.
Clinician:
The clinician gave me a shot of corticosteroids in the joint (~10 days ago). His advice was: “Avoid heavy lifting for 8 weeks. Definitely no bench or oh press for 8 weeks. Avoid any kind of oh activity for 4 weeks. After day 10, start focusing on lightweight retraction exercises, then bump it up in 10% increments over 1-2 week periods.” Amazingly I did manage to convince him to let me squat, though I dont think he understood what lowbar squatting is - I was transparent. He was also very resistant to DLs, though agreed to light DLs.
Question:
Ive been bouncing around the walls these last 10 days, and the idea of not pressing or deadlifting for 2 months drives me nuts. Of course the steroids have reduced the pain and its mostly just mild discomfort now, which doesnt help. Any thoughts on applying a principle of “listen to your body, adjust when you get to the point where the pain is obviously specific to the injury”? Or should I just follow his advice to the letter.
Hey Celery - sorry to hear about your situation. It is difficult for us to weigh-in on your situation and provide individual advice without a consultation. There are likely some layers to work through here regarding symptoms, imaging findings, and game plan to move forward. We’ve written a 4 part series on the shoulder, if you want to begin reading on the topic see HERE. With just what you’ve stated above, those activity recommendations seem conservative based on my usual clinical experience in this context. We’d be able to discuss this in more detail via a remote consultation. If you are interested, please complete our intake paperwork HERE. For general advice in these situations, please see the article Pain in Training; What do?