Requesting exersize tips- Help save my shoulders. Experiencing a dull pain...

Most of you EM regulars' know my story.
64 years old mtn biker not a body builder. New to TRT(11 months not dialed in TT low) trying to lose some weight cleaning up my diet and increasing my daily exersize from general fitness/core to building a little muscle. Recovering from Sarcopenia (muscle loss do to age).


I go to the gym every other day.
My first hours is a general workout to warmup everything.
My second hour is usually spent on cable machines to target specific muscle groups. I usually do 4 set of 10-6 reps.
The 6 reps are to failure with enough weight I can't do 7.

This cable machine work is all new exersizes to try and build some muscle.
I typically do all upper body one day then take a day off then do abs, lower back and legs then take a day off. Rince and repeat.
I do ride a mtn bike every day I don't go to the gym. I'll ride 14-20 easy miles mostly flat paved bike paths.
I would call this type of bike riding as close to some kind of cardio work.

Now for my problem: Shoulder sock dull pain/ache even at rest. It goes away completely if I take 3 or more days off.
My muscles seem to recover within 24 hour with very little pain slightly sore if you squeeze them.

What I think is happening is every exersize lats, traps, shoulders, chest, upper back, triceps, all seem to require shoulder socket movements and stress. So my traps for example would see 3 seperate machines and my shoulders are needed then chest 3 machines and shoulds get hit again and then ...you get the idea my shoulder are being destroyed. They don't see 4 set of 10 reps they have to endure 24 sets and 600 reps. Ouch!

Any suggestions on how I can not use my shoulders so much? Any other tips welcome to help me recover from Sarcopenia.

The shoulder take a beating. I had a similar issue but worse a few weeks back. Some days could not lift my arm above my shoulder. I know this trainer at the gym I go to and asked (paid) him for and hours worth of help. I can parrot back as best I can what he said that might get you in the right direction. He stressed stretching and warm ups before working out, which I did, but he said I was stretching my major shoulder muscles and not the muscles/ligaments/tendons of the rotor cuff. He gave me some specific streatches and lifts to do when I lift upper body to focus on the rotor cuff and the stuff that was hurting. He also gave me a few things to avoid when I lift, mostly arm/hand position stuff to reduce aggravating it. So far so good. I am having less major pain and less achiness, but it is still sore sometimes. Not all the way better, but it has not been that long. I think stretching long term is the key. He seemed to know his stuff as he as a power lifter and had a shoulder injury in his past. Some lifts I now avoid or stop if there is any pain and just move on.
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One last thing, I lift on a 4 day cycle mixed in with abdomen with a day or two of rest mixed when I am busy or tired. My days are lower body, back & biceps, chest & tris, and shoulders. He said shoulder days and chest days are hardest on the shoulder so don't lift those parts back to back. He said I should try to get as much separation between those days as I can.
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I hope this helps and that you get over this. Shoulders are like your back, they are vital to most all activities. Good luck.
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One more thought. You had mentioned in the past you wanted more gains or you had hit a wall, if I am remembering correctly. You might mix up your routine. Are you getting enough rest time between lifts? Are you hitting each muscle enough? One hour for my entire upper body would not be enough, IMO, to fully blast the muscles.

Saul said:

One more thought. You had mentioned in the past you wanted more gains or you had hit a wall, if I am remembering correctly. You might mix up your routine. Are you getting enough rest time between lifts? Are you hitting each muscle enough? One hour for my entire upper body would not be enough, IMO, to fully blast the muscles.

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Hi Saul thank you for the tips. Those stretches for the shoulder tendons sounds very interesting.

I haven't really developed my muscle building protocol yet. I am going slow and trying to exersize safe.
At my age an injury could take a long time heal. I do mix up my machines so the muscles are hit a little different.

Do to the sarcopenia I don't really getting a muscle pump like most get. They just get tired.
I think Gene's NO stack has really helped me get blood flowing to my muscles and
I am finely experiences a small pump in my shoulders, biceps and triceps at the end of my sets.
Not so much in lats or pecs. I am guessing because they are larger muscles.

It might be a good idea to increase rep range closer to 15-20 or 20-25. this can help concentrate on form and prevent injury. If you are newer to working out and/or older it can be easy to let form slip when you start getting down in the lower rep ranges, especially down towards 6 reps. Starting slow is definitely the right idea, perfect form first then slowly increase. Not sure of your exercise history, but a good trainer in the beginning to show proper form can be all the difference in efficacy and injury prevention. just my two cents. If you are like me it can be hard to be patient and try to increase weight to fast.

As you know, FL, I am almost your age at 64 in 4 months. Your workouts are too ambitious for your shoulders. You currently have some inflammation and possibly more if you don’t change your routine. I have had shoulder problems since the late 1960s and three rotator tears, so I literally feel you pain. A couple of things jump out at me:

Weights, especially machines, are dangerous to older guys. Machines lock the shoulder into a range of motion that, while fine for a healthy shoulder, are dangerous to an older shoulder that has an altered motion due to a lifetime of use and minor injuries. The shoulder learns to compensate and actually adjust the motion to accommodate tears. Free weights, especially dumbells are better than machines and straight bars. If you use weights, don’t be a stickler for full range of motion. In your 60s, the boat left years age for that.

As you and I have discussed via PM, I prefer resistance bands. Physical therapist use them for a reason. Because the initial force is weak at the beginning of the move, and intense at the top, the joint is protected a lot more. The plane of motion can naturally fall into what’s comfortable for you, rather that be locked into a machine or straight bar. You can intensely work the muscles while sparing the joint. I have not used weights in over two years, used bands for PT and stayed with the bands since. Not to brag, but you can see the level of recovery I got in my upper back and rotator cuff area. With bands you learn to use the muscle to move the band through a range of motion, rather than move a weight to contract the muscle. This is a subtle difference that makes all the difference if you want to protect your shoulder. This method enables you to get a great workout and pump from a relatively light band.

Your rep ranges are rather low for older shoulders. Older guys like us need a lot of warmup, especially in the shoulders. This isn’t as necessary with bands, slightly more necessary with dumbells and free weight, and a must with machines. If you must use weights, I’d suggest reps in the 10 to 20 range, with 8 as the absolute lowest range. Max lifts are not the greatest idea and competing with the other guys at the gym who are younger and haven’t had these injuries is a disaster waiting to happen.

Rather than train for strength, train for hypertrophy. Go for maximum pumps rather that power. Muscle is the number one insurance policy for older guys, allowing us to burn fat efficiently, helps with balance, and protects us from falls. Getting body fat down while doing so is also beneficial for health. Don’t worry about body fat ever getting “too low.” After 60 it’s almost impossible to do that. I’ve been trying to get under 10% and it’s tough.

You are going to get a lot of good advice from guys on this thread, but it would be good for guys to mention their ages, years training, and history with injury. A lot of this advice would be great if you were pushing 40,but not so much for your age. As I stated, working out with weights since the summer of 1967, high school and college football, running marathons, 26 years training martial arts all have give me my fair share of pain and injuries. Surgeries on foot, knee, hip replacement, and rotator cuff have taught me a few things about rehabbing and working around injuries.

If I could suggest one thing, it would be give up weights for the upper body and use bands instead. Using bands have given me back the muscle tone I had 20 years ago. Once you check your ego and accept the fact that you have no idea of the the answer to the age old question “ How much you bench?” you can move on and get healthy while building muscle

Good luck FL. You’ve made a ton of progress since joining here. You are at a point where training harder is no longer training smarter, and your shoulders are just letting you know it.

I have torn both of my rotator cuffs. Most men that I've talk to don't believe it can heal without surgery. I was told by one of my favorite doctors, that the only way my shoulder could heal was by surgery, wrong. One of my good buddies that lives in Florida just healed his rotator cuff this way, it took four months and he almost gave up.

https://www.excelmale.com/forum/showthread.php?8572-Torn-Labrum-in-both-shoulders


https://www.excelmale.com/forum/sho...der-pain-relief-Hanging-for-Healthy-Shoulders

Every time I get some shoulder pain, or impingement, it's because of tightness in my pecs, namely the upper pectoral. I use a lacrosse ball and roll my chest standing against a wall. This fixes me up every time. And I mean the kind of pain that was hampering my lifts in the gym and slowing me down in personal life, even visited Sports Med and was given a Cortisone injection, it was that bad. But once I started rolling my chest like that it's almost completely a non-issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyH706vRGe0

Wow ! Thanks guys. Lots to think about and study. I am glad I asked.
This shoulder pain has just started and I believe I have caught it before damage.

@Mountain Man,
hypertrophy a new term for me.
=====================================
How does hypertrophy occur in muscles?

Muscle hypertrophy involves an increase in size of skeletal muscle through a growth in size of its component cells.
Two factors contribute to hypertrophy: sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, which focuses more on increased muscle glycogen storage;
and myofibrillar hypertrophy, which focuses more on increased myofibril size.
======================================

Would it be possible/advantageous to work on both glycogen storage and increased myofibril size?
If you do 4 sets the first two could be high reps 20-25 and the last two sets low reps 6-10 to failure?

I am going slow worrying about my joints and tendons more than my muscles.
I spend an entire hour stretching and warming up. Being retired I am not restricted to a time constraint at the gym.

For warmups my gym has a set of 12 machines set in a circle they call a fast circuit.
There is a timer 60second on 30 seconds off. You select a weigh low enough you can perform the exersize(~25 reps) for a full 60seconds and rest for 30 while changing stations.
These 12 stations will hit every muscle group. I select the weight for each machine so by rep 24-25 I just start to feel a burn. So the whole 30-45 minutes I am not exerting a lot of strength it's more about smooth motion full range of motion and proper form. Each rep is slow, deliberate, and you concentrate on making one specific muscle do the work. I would call this sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

Then I would move to the cable machines for the low rep (myofibrillar hypertrophy) thinking these were safer than free weights.

At home I have a pretty nice band set. I even put together a nice travel kit for it.
However at the gym its more of a social event for me.
We have a nice group of retiree's (55-73) that hang together so we talk and exersize at the machines.
It's a fun time killer we look like a small herd of silverback gorillas moving thru the forest ....I mean gym.

i also have heard good things about hanging and there is a book that was recommended to me called;
"Shoulder pain? The Solution & Prevention" written by John M. Kirsch, MD (Board Certified Orthopaedic Surgeon)

I have used a post workout shake that heals the shoulders.
But I used it before I was on T therapy so i am not sure if it would work for me now...but it definitely worked and healed them after around a week or so......this was several years ago when I had a nagging problem....guess i would of been around 55 then.
Never got to understand the science of how it worked....but it did so it might be worth a shot.

I will dig around for the info on it and see if I can find it.

Ardoc said:

i also have heard good things about hanging and there is a book that was recommended to me called;
"Shoulder pain? The Solution & Prevention" written by John M. Kirsch, MD (Board Certified Orthopaedic Surgeon)

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Yes that's the book and surgeon doctor. That told me how to heal my rotator cuff, he saved me from having to go under the knife.

Vince said:

I have torn both of my rotator cuffs. Most men that I've talk to don't believe it can heal without surgery. I was told by one of my favorite doctors, that the only way my shoulder could heal was by surgery, wrong. One of my good buddies that lives in Florida just healed his rotator cuff this way, it took four months and he almost gave up.

the doctor was in Stevens Point not Two Rivers.

​

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Thanks for this video on hanging Vince I am going to start doing this.
I also like the ball massage video VC posted and will be trying that.

That massage, seriously every time my shoulder hurts in the joint area, I take 5 minutes and roll out both pecs and I'm back to normal. Works so well that I keep a lacrosse ball at home and work. I hope that if you try that it works for you.

LTChris said:

It might be a good idea to increase rep range closer to 15-20 or 20-25. this can help concentrate on form and prevent injury. If you are newer to working out and/or older it can be easy to let form slip when you start getting down in the lower rep ranges, especially down towards 6 reps. Starting slow is definitely the right idea, perfect form first then slowly increase. Not sure of your exercise history, but a good trainer in the beginning to show proper form can be all the difference in efficacy and injury prevention. just my two cents. If you are like me it can be hard to be patient and try to increase weight to fast.

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Great piece of advice!

FeelingLost said:

Thanks for this video on hanging Vince I am going to start doing this.
I also like the ball massage video VC posted and will be trying that.

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Main issues for shoulders issues weak rotator cuff muscles, improper form when training shoulders/chest, muscle imbalance between the pecs/upper back muscles (pecs too strong/back muscles rhomboids weaker).

Invest in a shoulder horn and there are also many cable exercise to train the rotator cuff muscles.