Shoulder Plan of Action/Swing Drop Sets

I am back! I have been working out, but just not posting due to various issues - mainly work and family obligations resulting in lack of time. My shoulder, however, is not back to normal. I continue to have pain and have not been able to do any overhead movements. However, I do have a plan of action. Most of it is based on comments posted on my blog by Mark Reifkind. He reminded me of a great shoulder article posted on T-nation several years ago. I have had previous success using these exercises back in 2008. I would highly recommend everybody take a look at this article even if your shoulders are currently feeling good. I have now started a steady diet of stick shrugs, push ups, face pulls, and scapular pull aparts. The shoulder article referenced above has excellent video clips demonstrating the above listed exercises. See the following video by Rif demonstrating a modified stick shrug and the scapular pull aparts:

I have further modified the stick shrugs because I don't have a squat rack in my basement. Instead, I kneel on both knees in a door jamb and slide my PVC "stick" up and down the door jamb. This works very well. I have been doing the face pulls using a Grey Cook band.

I have also been reading an excellent book by Ida Rolf:

Anybody who is interested in body mechanics will find this book an extremely interesting read. It fits very well with the writings of Thomas Meyers (Anatomy Trains), who studied under Ida Rolf, as well as the FMS philosophy. As I have read this book, I have begun to realize that my repeated left shoulder issues are likely due to some larger structural abnormalities which I think are ultimately related to an ACL tear of my right knee at the age of 18. I have located a Rolfing specialist in my area and have made an appointment for evaluation. I am hopeful that correcting some of these issues will help me recover from my current shoulder injury and help prevent further problems down the road. I will keep you updated on my progress.

My workout Friday was inspired by the Queen of Swing, Tracy Reifkind. Instead of doing swing ladders with various weights of bells as she had recently posted on her blog, I decided to do swing drop sets using the 40kg, 32kg, 28kg, 24kg, and 20kg bells. I did 10 reps of 2 handed swings with each bell. Each set consisted of 50 reps and took about 1 minute and 30 seconds. I rested 45 seconds between sets and completed a total of 8 sets for a grand total of 400 swings.