Not that impressive stats but trying hard.

[malfeasance]

Thanks man! Yeah username describes me to a T. Even now in my mid 50's l am eating close to 5000 calories a day and have dropped from 80 kilo down to 73 kilo in the 8 months l haven't trained due to injury. It actually sucks to have such a fast metabolism.
As for shoulder pain front and side raise movements cause pain down front and side of shoulder into front and side of bicep, bench press and pull up movements cause same pain. As for injury doc reckons rotator cuff damage with minor cartilage separation, inflamed Bursa and frozen shoulder. To technical for me, all l know is all upper body stuff seems to cause decent pain. I did see the broomstick exercises you spoke about in a thread a while back so l mentioned them to my physio a few weeks ago, he made some smart ass comment do you want to make your shoulder worse so l didn't try them.

About the same age.

About the same shoulder.

 

[Highly ecto]

About the same age.

About the same shoulder.

Hey Malf, can l ask what you have done to be able to keep lifting?
Because even after 8 months of no upper body training, 2 cortisone injections and doing my physio to a T, l can't even do the simple stuff like picking up a kettle or putting my arm through my jumper sleeve without pain running down my shoulder into my arm.

 

[malfeasance]

Hey Malf, can l ask what you have done to be able to keep lifting?
Because even after 8 months of no upper body training, 2 cortisone injections and doing my physio to a T, l can't even do the simple stuff like picking up a kettle or putting my arm through my jumper sleeve without pain running down my shoulder into my arm.

I just deal with it and work around it.

I went to two different orthopedic surgeons, both of whom told me they did not think there was much they could do for me and that surgery might be worse than what they were seeing on the MRI. Since they make their living doing surgery, and I saw two of them, I took them at their word.

I don't do flat bench or barbell incline or decline anymore.

I try to limit my dumb bell weight to 120 or so for chest presses. I know that sort of caps my size probably, but I am old and not going to get any bigger anyway.

I also think I am suffering from a partial pec tear where the pec tendon connects to the arm. Bicep issue. Knees. Groan.

I just find ways to keep stimulating the muscle without making things worse.

I spent a long time ignoring it and pushing through very painful workouts. Oh, it hurts, well, then, I am putting 315 on the incline press, and I am going to grit my teeth through 8 reps. I suffered probably additional partial tears doing that, and the pain would wake me up in the middle of the night. It felt like somebody was sticking a knife in my shoulder into the bone and twisting it.

So finally I said enough is enough and stopped with the heavy barbells. I tried heavy machine work for a while, but an injury in the same place stopped my prep 10 weeks out from a contest.

Every time I have tried to go back and use a barbell (like the time I tried declines on a Smith machine with 225, felt fine, ok, increase, increase, hey 315 still feels light POP! Ow!) I end up regretting it. I miss heavy barbell work, but it is no longer productive for me and far too risky.

So now I just do dumb bell work and cable and pec deck, and I am very careful and controlled in my movements. I managed to compete and win in a local show with only this sort of chest work.

Thankfully my legs have held up with no injuries, but that may be because my legs have always been weak (from a powerlifter/bodybuilder perspective). It may be that decades of lifting with lighter weights has been beneficial in terms of avoiding injuries to the lower body.

The downside is my legs are a noticeable weak point for standing on a bodybuilding stage (but to the normal public I have large, muscular legs, lol! it's funny how perspectives can differ).

So I don't have any secrets for you. If they can fix it and assure you it will be good to go, then do it. If not, then find other ways to work your shoulders, chest, etc.

Many shoulder movements are still very painful for me, but I work through the pain and have very respectable looking shoulders. But inside they look awful, and I have a lot of pain during normal movements like getting milk out of the refrigerator.

 

[Highly ecto]

I just deal with it and work around it.

I went to two different orthopedic surgeons, both of whom told me they did not think there was much they could do for me and that surgery might be worse than what they were seeing on the MRI. Since they make their living doing surgery, and I saw two of them, I took them at their word.

I don't do flat bench or barbell incline or decline anymore.

I try to limit my dumb bell weight to 120 or so for chest presses. I know that sort of caps my size probably, but I am old and not going to get any bigger anyway.

I also think I am suffering from a partial pec tear where the pec tendon connects to the arm. Bicep issue. Knees. Groan.

I just find ways to keep stimulating the muscle without making things worse.

I spent a long time ignoring it and pushing through very painful workouts. Oh, it hurts, well, then, I am putting 315 on the incline press, and I am going to grit my teeth through 8 reps. I suffered probably additional partial tears doing that, and the pain would wake me up in the middle of the night. It felt like somebody was sticking a knife in my shoulder into the bone and twisting it.

So finally I said enough is enough and stopped with the heavy barbells. I tried heavy machine work for a while, but an injury in the same place stopped my prep 10 weeks out from a contest.

Every time I have tried to go back and use a barbell (like the time I tried declines on a Smith machine with 225, felt fine, ok, increase, increase, hey 315 still feels light POP! Ow!) I end up regretting it. I miss heavy barbell work, but it is no longer productive for me and far too risky.

So now I just do dumb bell work and cable and pec deck, and I am very careful and controlled in my movements. I managed to compete and win in a local show with only this sort of chest work.

Thankfully my legs have held up with no injuries, but that may be because my legs have always been weak (from a powerlifter/bodybuilder perspective). It may be that decades of lifting with lighter weights has been beneficial in terms of avoiding injuries to the lower body.

The downside is my legs are a noticeable weak point for standing on a bodybuilding stage (but to the normal public I have large, muscular legs, lol! it's funny how perspectives can differ).

So I don't have any secrets for you. If they can fix it and assure you it will be good to go, then do it. If not, then find other ways to work your shoulders, chest, etc.

Many shoulder movements are still very painful for me, but I work through the pain and have very respectable looking shoulders. But inside they look awful, and I have a lot of pain during normal movements like getting milk out of the refrigerator.

Thanks for the detailed reply, its much appreciated and will be very helpful for when l return to training.
On another note l am a lifelong natty who is considering TRT, would adding something like HGH or DECA in low doses to the TRT help the shoulder or just be more of a temporary patch on the problem, or even be a complete waist of time?
l will say one thing though, because of our desire to look and feel good about ourselves we are both gonna be paying the price in 10 or 20 years time.

 

[barbell001]

I don't want to encourage you to lift on the shoulder or take gear to alleviate or mask pain, but I do know the following things can help either by stimulating collagen production to help tendons strengthen, or by encouraging more water into the shoulder joint to help cushion and protect it etc:

E.Q / Anavar - Collagen production
NPP / Deca - Water
Dbol - Water
HGH - Tendon growth
IGF-1 LR3 - Tendon Growth
Collagen Peptides & Vit C
1 gram VIt C tablets - Collagen
Creatine - Tendon strengthening

 

[MR_Midas]

Thanks for the detailed reply, its much appreciated and will be very helpful for when l return to training.
On another note l am a lifelong natty who is considering TRT, would adding something like HGH or DECA in low doses to the TRT help the shoulder or just be more of a temporary patch on the problem, or even be a complete waist of time?
l will say one thing though, because of our desire to look and feel good about ourselves we are both gonna be paying the price in 10 or 20 years time.

Growth hormone for the shoulder will help its treatment, but with appropriate procedures will speed up its treatment.

 

[Highly ecto]

Growth hormone for the shoulder will help its treatment, but with appropriate procedures will speed up its treatment.

Yeah I'm definitely doing all the rehab that l'm told to do.

 

[Highly ecto]

I don't want to encourage you to lift on the shoulder or take gear to alleviate or mask pain, but I do know the following things can help either by stimulating collagen production to help tendons strengthen, or by encouraging more water into the shoulder joint to help cushion and protect it etc:

E.Q / Anavar - Collagen production
NPP / Deca - Water
Dbol - Water
HGH - Tendon growth
IGF-1 LR3 - Tendon Growth
Collagen Peptides & Vit C
1 gram VIt C tablets - Collagen
Creatine - Tendon strengthening

Thanks for info, very helpful. As for encouraging gear use, to be honest l was considering it about 12 months before l injured my shoulder as my weight and strength had sought of plateaued or even gone down a bit. All my blood tests l had run while training natty over the years consistently showed, good Total T, crazy high SHGB like twice the max range and bottom of range Free T. Estrogen all though in range is always on the high side too. l asked doc about it, he said as all important health markers are spot on its probably just genetic.
So l just tried natural stuff like Boron, Dim, Nettle Root, Tongkat Ali, Tribulus, D aspartic acid. Over the tears l tried just about every supplement noan to man. All this did was cost me thousands of dollars for no real change in results. So now l just take fish oil, Vit k2 MK7, Dim, magnesium and get plenty of sun and bloods are still the same. I think this probably affects my performance in the gym a bit because l have never really had that killer instinct in the gym where you feel like you can crush the weights, its always been more like, fuck me this hard. But l am very disciplined when l start something so l just keep battling on. I was considering trying 150mg of test cyp and 100mg of primo a week a while ago but thought no point when you can't train. Anyway l think l rambled on enough about my problems, again thanks info its much appreciated.

 

[MR_Midas]

Yeah I'm definitely doing all the rehab that l'm told to do.

This is a great plan, keep it up.

 

[MR_Midas]

Thanks for info, very helpful. As for encouraging gear use, to be honest l was considering it about 12 months before l injured my shoulder as my weight and strength had sought of plateaued or even gone down a bit. All my blood tests l had run while training natty over the years consistently showed, good Total T, crazy high SHGB like twice the max range and bottom of range Free T. Estrogen all though in range is always on the high side too. l asked doc about it, he said as all important health markers are spot on its probably just genetic.
So l just tried natural stuff like Boron, Dim, Nettle Root, Tongkat Ali, Tribulus, D aspartic acid. Over the tears l tried just about every supplement noan to man. All this did was cost me thousands of dollars for no real change in results. So now l just take fish oil, Vit k2 MK7, Dim, magnesium and get plenty of sun and bloods are still the same. I think this probably affects my performance in the gym a bit because l have never really had that killer instinct in the gym where you feel like you can crush the weights, its always been more like, fuck me this hard. But l am very disciplined when l start something so l just keep battling on. I was considering trying 150mg of test cyp and 100mg of primo a week a while ago but thought no point when you can't train. Anyway l think l rambled on enough about my problems, again thanks info its much appreciated.

Yes, a lot of supplements, it's just a hoax and only money down the toilet. I myself was convinced of this many times, useless means and huge money