Rotator cuff-friendly DB Press

[Buffindiandude]

I did my first serious chest/shoulder workout today after kinda taking it easy for these body parts for the last 2-3 weeks due to a bad case of rotator cuff impingement.

I started off at about 50% weight and warmed up. No pain, so far so good!

Then I moved up to about 10 lb below my max and tested out the shoulder. Everything was ok, except that my shoulder hurt when I locked out at the top and touched the dumbbells together, as well as when I was lowering the weight. I was getting nervous, not wanting to re-injure myself.

For my next set, I turned the dumbbells 90 degrees from the conventional orientation until the axis of the dumbbells was parallel to the body and used my max weight. Voila, no pain!

I think I am going to stick to this orientation for a few more chest workouts and see how it goes. I got a pretty good pump, so I am hoping that it is effective. The way I see it, it is better than cutting the weight way down or skipping chest workouts which is what I was doing when I was hurt

[pudgy]

nice, thanks for the info ,i had a sore shoulder for eight months and everytime i tried to go heavy i reinjured it. sometimes you just have to be patient.

[meat12]

Yeah sounds good man, be as careful as you can when it comes to your rotator cuff, it's involved in most of your bodys movements..therefore most of your workouts will be affected. Yeah stay light just do what you can handle.

[Stonecold54]

as with all other things remeber that over-use is the biggest injury causer. A lot of injuries are cummaltive and don't come from a specific movement or a specific time. So be careful about your overall training and make sure you aren't doing to much which will lead you right back into more problems.