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Always Be Smashing

One of my definitions of health is how I feel rolling out of the bed in the morning. Am I made of metal, and just need to scrape some rust off? Or am I made of wood, and likely to snap if I move too fast?

By that definition, I didn't feel very healthy Wednesday morning. Didn't have the heart to go run. Definitely under recovered - which tells me I'm not going to be able to hit 400 snatches a week. So, dialing it back accordingly.

Volleyball in the evening. Bit of a frustrating day, I think the under recovery was also manifesting in the form of not getting out of the sand well.

9/24 07:00

Trifecta
Shoulder sequence
Crawling 11x45s
Waiter walks x12 32

9/24 16:30

Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x6
Dragon squats 2x4 16
KB snatch 10x5 32
TGU + press 10x1 28,32,3x28
SQT 3x5 230#
Pullups 3x4
Grip work
Hang board
 
9/27 09:30

91min outdoor run 7.2m
- Ave HR 129, max 142
Foam rolling, bretzels + forward fold

It was a beautiful, cool day, and I had missed 2 runs this week, so I went for a long run today. The run was great - very zen, just coasting along the whole way. But... afterwards, I was trying to get some chores done, and I got a wicked abdominal cramp that put me down for an hour. That's why I haven't been doing long runs... need to get stuff done afterwards.
 
offwidth said:
Are you attributing the cramp to the run? Some causal relationship? Has this happened in the past?
Click to expand...

No, I wouldn't say the run caused it. This is a cramp that has caught me a few times in the past when I am doing a lot of TGUs in training. I would say, the run demanded that I pay the tax of resting and rehydrating for an hour or two, but I tried to skip that, and the cramp was just the tax man collecting his due.
 
9/28 06:45

Trifecta
Shoulder sequence
Heavy bag + jump rope
Suitcase carries x12 48

9/28 21:15

Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x6
Dragon squats 2x4 16
KB snatch 10x6 32
TGU + press 10x1 28,32,3x28
SQT 3x5 245#
Pullups 3x5
Grip work
Hang board

Some fatigue in the outer hips during TGUs - I suspect some combination of the long run Sunday and the bag work this morning. Snatches felt solid.
 
9/29 07:00

40min treadmill run/walk 3.0m
FSPM

9/29 21:15

Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x6
Dragon squats 2x4 16
KB snatch 10x6 32
TGU 10x1 40
DL 5x1 355#
BP 3x5 185#
LTK 4x6
Joint plyo series

Good session all around. Felt like I could have gone to sets of 7 on snatches, but (wisely) opted to save some for down the road. Barbell lifts felt very solid. Lots of work, though - core was certainly wiped by the end of leg tucks.

Feels good to be spending more time on the barbell lately. Barbell was my first love in high school. I definitely believe in the effectiveness of kettlebell and calisthenics work, but I think the incremental loading of the barbell is probably the fastest path to some of the relative strength goals I'm chasing.
 
10/1 07:00

Trifecta
Shoulder sequence
Crawling 12x45s
Waiter walks x12 32

10/1 17:00

Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x6
Dragon squats 2x4 16
KB snatch 10x6 32
TGU + press 10x1 28,32,3x28
SQT 3x5 245#
Pullups 3x5
Grip circuit
Hang board

Some shoulder soreness today, probably from volleyball, manifested as weak pullups. My attempts at shoulder bulletproofing just don't seem to be coming along as well as the lower back work. My relative shoulder strength has always been poor, figure I must just be a bit of a hard-gainer there.
 
Antti said:
How exactly do you attempt to bulletproof the shoulders? How long have you done it? What has worked and what hasn't? How do you measure?
Click to expand...

My idea, at least, is to try to improve strength in all planes of motion. The problem for the shoulders, of course, is that there are infinite planes of motion. I've been doing my current set of practices for about 6 months (I started around the time COVID stuff started), main things are:
  • Overhead reaching/stretching
  • Shoulder dislocates
  • Pushups & dips
  • Bodyweight rows (started on a bar, recently transitioned to rings)
  • Behind-the-back reaching (trying to touch the shoulder blade with opposite hand, above and below shoulder)
The real goal is to be able to do things I enjoy and be pain free. The two things I enjoy that seem to be periodic shoulder pain triggers are volleyball and high-volume KB snatches.

As far as what works... it's always hard to say if preventive measures are working. When you aren't in pain, there's no way to know if that's because of your preventative measures, or because of something else entirely. All I can say for a fact at the moment is that it hasn't been 100% effective - I still periodically am subject to shoulder pain.

But with that said - I do think it's improved. Again hard to say because I haven't logged data diligently on this, but it does seem to me that back in the winter and early spring, I would have more bouts of post-volleyball shoulder pain, that would last a little longer (took more than 1 day to feel normal again). In the last 6 months that doesn't seem to be the case... I can only recall a couple of incidents, and none of them last more than 1 day - 2 of them only lasted the next morning. Probably that says that I should take specific action to log incidents and duration.

So... I think it's working... just not as well/quickly as the core work I've been doing for my back (bridges, hanging leg raises, twisting). My back has been feeling great since healing up from the last TSC (knock on wood).

I'm thinking, particularly for volleyball, I would probably benefit from adding some rotator-cuff-focused movements. So I was looking into getting some bands. But at the same time, my training sessions are really too long already...
 
offwidth said:
You do TGU’s. How have you found this to contribute to bulletproofing your shoulders?
Click to expand...

I've personally never really thought of the TGU as much of a shoulder exercise. Of course, I do expect them to have some benefit, but I do them more for the core strength and hip mobility benefits. That said, there are a few shoulder-specific things that I try to wring out of the TGU:
  • With a heavy bell, there's some stress applied to the deltoid during the roll to the elbow, since you have to tip the bell forward just a little to get moving. Like a mini front raise.
  • There's a good anti-shrug effect on the planted elbow/hand.
  • I can get a stretch on the bell-side pec after the leg sweep (i.e. in the "tripod"). Arm bars attack that better, of course, but still a little benefit you can wring out.
My thinking, however, is that my shoulder pain tends to come from more dynamic movements (e.g. striking a volleyball), so I'm not convinced the TGU builds protection against that.

Of course, who knows... maybe I'd be in even worse shape if I wasn't doing TGUs!
 
WhatWouldHulkDo said:
My idea, at least, is to try to improve strength in all planes of motion. The problem for the shoulders, of course, is that there are infinite planes of motion. I've been doing my current set of practices for about 6 months (I started around the time COVID stuff started), main things are:
  • Overhead reaching/stretching
  • Shoulder dislocates
  • Pushups & dips
  • Bodyweight rows (started on a bar, recently transitioned to rings)
  • Behind-the-back reaching (trying to touch the shoulder blade with opposite hand, above and below shoulder)
The real goal is to be able to do things I enjoy and be pain free. The two things I enjoy that seem to be periodic shoulder pain triggers are volleyball and high-volume KB snatches.

As far as what works... it's always hard to say if preventive measures are working. When you aren't in pain, there's no way to know if that's because of your preventative measures, or because of something else entirely. All I can say for a fact at the moment is that it hasn't been 100% effective - I still periodically am subject to shoulder pain.

But with that said - I do think it's improved. Again hard to say because I haven't logged data diligently on this, but it does seem to me that back in the winter and early spring, I would have more bouts of post-volleyball shoulder pain, that would last a little longer (took more than 1 day to feel normal again). In the last 6 months that doesn't seem to be the case... I can only recall a couple of incidents, and none of them last more than 1 day - 2 of them only lasted the next morning. Probably that says that I should take specific action to log incidents and duration.

So... I think it's working... just not as well/quickly as the core work I've been doing for my back (bridges, hanging leg raises, twisting). My back has been feeling great since healing up from the last TSC (knock on wood).

I'm thinking, particularly for volleyball, I would probably benefit from adding some rotator-cuff-focused movements. So I was looking into getting some bands. But at the same time, my training sessions are really too long already...
Click to expand...

Where in the shoulder is the pain prevalent? Is it both shoulders equally? Are there certain actions/exercises/movements that trigger it more?
 
Philippe Geoffrion said:
Where in the shoulder is the pain prevalent? Is it both shoulders equally? Are there certain actions/exercises/movements that trigger it more?
Click to expand...

Most common the pain will be across the top of the joint, towards the end of the collarbone - feels like the anterior deltoid, maybe? That's why I started up dips, hoping to work on any possible weakness there. Where I tend to notice it most after it happens will be in doing bridges - I'm not able to straighten my arms that well to begin with due to lack of mobility, but when I'm experiencing shoulder pain it tends to limit that ROM even more. It will show up as a weak pullup sometimes as well. And if I get a particularly bad day, my shoulders will grumble when I raise my arms over my head to take a shirt off.

Fortunately it doesn't happen that often - like I said before, just a few times in the last 6 months. But when it happens, it's consistently the same thing.

Tends to show up in either shoulder, but I am semi-ambidextrous - I'm right hand dominant, but I can hit a volleyball with either hand reasonably well, and I do try to hit with my left when I get a chance. Messes with the defender's mind.
 
10/2 07:30

40min treadmill run/walk 3.0m
Foam rolling, bretzels + forward fold

10/2 17:30

Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x6
Dragon squats 2x4 16
KB snatch 10x6 32
TGU 10x1 40
DL 5x1 355#
BP 3x5 185#
LTK 4x6
Joint plyo series

Had a bit of a revelation today. When I was in my early thirties, I had several ping-pongs between actively lifting and being a lazy fat-arse. In my active phases, it never took that long to get my squat/bench strength back - maybe a month or so. This time, despite being in what I consider to be much better shape, it's taking much longer to get it back. My baseline squat / bench press strength seems to be a bit lower.

Well... guess what, cupcake! You're in your mid forties now! This may be the reality now... it all takes longer. Perhaps a concrete example of age catching up to me.
 
It is indeed a new reality now young Padawan...

For me it is a bit like how Pavel quoted Toby Keith... I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was...

I find I can usually ‘keep up’ with the young un’s on any given day. But I can‘t do it day in day out like I once could. Recovery takes way longer.

A friend of mine rode (and completed) the Paris - Dakar rally on a motorcycle (as a privateer) He said it always felt like he was a bug with a giant shoe about to step on him. Always just one step away from getting squashed...

I feel a bit like that at times with training and events these days. You get a little niggle or tweak something you just HAVE to take it seriously and address it. Decades ago I could sort of just blow through stuff like that...

Time is a wonderful teacher. Unfortunately it kills all of its pupils
- Hector Berlioz

On that cheery note... have a good weekend... :cool:
-b
 
WhatWouldHulkDo said:
My idea, at least, is to try to improve strength in all planes of motion. The problem for the shoulders, of course, is that there are infinite planes of motion. I've been doing my current set of practices for about 6 months (I started around the time COVID stuff started), main things are:
  • Overhead reaching/stretching
  • Shoulder dislocates
  • Pushups & dips
  • Bodyweight rows (started on a bar, recently transitioned to rings)
  • Behind-the-back reaching (trying to touch the shoulder blade with opposite hand, above and below shoulder)
The real goal is to be able to do things I enjoy and be pain free. The two things I enjoy that seem to be periodic shoulder pain triggers are volleyball and high-volume KB snatches.

As far as what works... it's always hard to say if preventive measures are working. When you aren't in pain, there's no way to know if that's because of your preventative measures, or because of something else entirely. All I can say for a fact at the moment is that it hasn't been 100% effective - I still periodically am subject to shoulder pain.

But with that said - I do think it's improved. Again hard to say because I haven't logged data diligently on this, but it does seem to me that back in the winter and early spring, I would have more bouts of post-volleyball shoulder pain, that would last a little longer (took more than 1 day to feel normal again). In the last 6 months that doesn't seem to be the case... I can only recall a couple of incidents, and none of them last more than 1 day - 2 of them only lasted the next morning. Probably that says that I should take specific action to log incidents and duration.

So... I think it's working... just not as well/quickly as the core work I've been doing for my back (bridges, hanging leg raises, twisting). My back has been feeling great since healing up from the last TSC (knock on wood).

I'm thinking, particularly for volleyball, I would probably benefit from adding some rotator-cuff-focused movements. So I was looking into getting some bands. But at the same time, my training sessions are really too long already...
Click to expand...

Strength in all planes of motion sounds good, if not obvious. Yes, with the shoulders it's harder than with more simple joints. But thinking of the shoulder, it's all muscle, right?

You have a good list. With the shoulders I think it's at times hard to say where exactly the line between the strength exercises and the mobility/flexibility/restoration is. Some of the little muscles get a lot of work in from a little load.

Personally, I try to do the push and the pull both vertically and horizontally each week. I also try to do it with various methods, use little differences in angles etc, all the time. I suppose I could be more thorough with it, but things mostly seem fine for me as it is. Though my mobility is not impressive, but I take it as a part of the deal of what I do. Is it a good deal or not? Is it even necessary? Can't really say that I sacrifice anything.

In addition to the presses and rows I do exercises that I see restorative. Dislocates, pull-aparts, face pulls, raises, etc. There can be a lot of times. You bring up the point that the session can only be that long. But I find that most of the exercises or drills I do I do outside of the training session or between exercises or very shortly in the session. So I don't find that they demand a lot of time.

I also agree with the difficulty of assessing the effectiveness. In a way I'm certain that what I do is good for me, both strength wise but making me more durable. But the durability isn't always imminent, I believe I often don't notice when it helped.

With your pain triggers, it seems both of the exercises demand a lot from the shoulder in the most demanding position. With that in mind, it's not surprising. I don't mean to be negative, but if you already do a lot around it, some issues can be just a part of the game for some people.

All that said, there is of course specificity, even if I always recommend getting stronger in general first. Regarding your triggers again; even if dips or a decline press is a solid addition in a program, the push press or the straight arm pulldown could be better.
 
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