A Shoulder Rehab Protocol For Pedro
A Shoulder Rehab Program
This page is for my friend Pedro.
He needs to stabilize and structurally balance, strengthen and bullet-proof his shoulder, so this is what we do here.
When he was up in Iceland we didn‘t have time to go through the exercises so we will now do it like this.
Just to make this a whole program, I add in a Lower-Body Day that does the same for the hips(especially the lower back) and the knee: strengthen and bullet-proof them.
First I will write out the notation and explain how to read it: what it all means and how to use it. Then I will add videos that show some of the exercises.
Like that, the result will be a program that can give you good results, even though I‘m not there to guide you through it.
Therapy: A.R.T. soft tissue therapy twice per week would be optimal, for all these shoulder structures:
Lat, Externals, Supra, Levator, Pecs, Subscap, Biceps.
The basic rules in rehab training are: any sharp pain or great discomfort, we change the exercise. Some soreness might well be expected, but not too much. If the pain and/or swelling get worse from rep to rep, set to set or workout to workout, we discontinue with that exercise and replace it with another that does the same; this time without irritating the structure.
We use an Upper/Lower-Split, so Day 1 is Upper- and Day 2 is Lower-Body. Every body part is trained twice per week, ex:
Monday: Upper
Tuesday: Lower
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Upper
Friday: Lower
Weekend Off.
Naturally, you can start on a Tuesday and go from there:
Tue: Upper
Wed: Lower
Thu: Off
Fri: Upper
Sat: Lower
Sun+Mon.: Off
Seeing that the shoulder is the priority here, you can also do the Lower just once a week, reducing total training days to three:
Monday: Upper
Wednesday: Lower
Friday: Upper
Weekend Off.
Shoulder Rehab Protocol
Day 1, Upper Body:
A1:S.A. High, 3×9-12rm,4010, 60s.
A2:DumBell-Row to Hip, 3×9-12rm,4010, 60s.
B1:Trap-3, 3×9-12rm,4010, 60s.
B2:Unrolling DB-Flys, 3×9-12rm,4010, 60s.
C1:S.A.Reverse Flys, 3×9-12rm,3011, 60s.
C2:Flat BarBell-Protractions, 3×20-25rm,1010, 60s.
D1:S.A.DumBell-Shrugs, 2×9-12rm,4010, 10s.
D2:DumBell-Retractions, 2×20-25rm,1010, 10s.
D3:S.A.DumBell-Shrugs, 2×9-12rm,4010, 120s.
E:Seated Cable-Rows, 1x 50-60 reps, 1010, 120s.TUT (Finisher)
Day 2, Lower Body:
A1: Peterson Step-Ups, 4x25rm, 1010, 60seconds rest.
A2:Leg-Curls, 4×6-8rm, 4010, 60s.
B1:Split-Squats, 3x 9-12rm, 4010, 60s.
B2:RDL‘s, 3×9-12rm, 4010,60s.
C1:Eccentric Back Extensions, 2×9-12rm, 4010, 60s.
C2:Crunches, 2x25rm, 1010, 60s.
D: Leg-Press, 1x 50-60 reps, 1010, 120 TUT.(Finisher)
And here’s how we do it:
Day 1, Upper Body,A1: ”S.A. High” is the first shoulder exercise in the workout and it’s demonstrated in the video below.
So you take a, say,3-4 kg dumbell and do between 9-12 reps with it.(rm means rep-max, but don’t worry about that for now !;-)
The tempo is 4010, that means you lower the weight over a 4 second count, then raise for 1 second. So 4 seconds down, 1 second up. Then “60 seconds” means you rest for one minute before going to…
A2: ”Dumbell-Row to Hip”. Here you again do 9-12 reps, probably with 7.5 kg or so. You know you got the right weight when you can do at least 9 strict reps with it, but you couldn’t do more than 12.
Always respect the “Technical Limit”, so as soon as form breaks down or you can’t maintain the prescribed tempo(again 4010 in this case here)the set is finished. So 9-12 reps at a 4010 tempo(4 seconds down, one second up). Then rest for 60 seconds and go back to…
A1: S.A-High.
So it’s back and forth between A1 and A2, with 1 minute rest in between. You do that for 4 sets each. That’s the notation: 4x 9-12. 60s.(4 sets each of 9-12 reps, 60 seconds rest in between)Then the same on…
B1: Trap-3, an awesome exercise for shoulder health.
Here it says 3×9-12, 60s. So you do a set of 9-12 reps, rest a minute, then go to B2: Unrolling Dumbell Flys
(these will help build up your chest !;-)
Same set-up: 9-12 reps on a 4010 tempo, rest a minute, then go back to B1: Trap-3. Then on to B2, and one more time back to B1,followed by B2. So you switch back and forth for 3 times total each.
Same on C1&C2:
C1: S.A.Reverse Flys, same set-up but a different tempo…
2×9-12rm, 3011, 60s. means: you do 9-12 reps of this exercise, lowering the weight for the count of three, raise over one second and then HOLD in the top-position for 1 second, repeat. Then rest a minute, over to…
C2: Flat Barbell Protractions. Again a different tempo here, because of the nature of the exercise and the short range of motion.
It reads: 2x 20-25, 1010, 60s. So you do between 20 and 25 reps, 1 second up and 1 second down, rest a minute, go back to do C1 one more time and after another minute do the 2nd and last set of C2 for this workout.
Now right into D1, 2and 3: this is a Tri-Set, that means you do three different exercises in a row without much rest. Or actually it’s two exercises: you do the first, then the second one and the RIGHT BACK TO THE FIRST ONE AGAIN without more rest than 10 seconds or so!!
So the notation reads:
D1:S.A.DumBell-Shrugs, 2×9-12rm,4010, 10s.
D2:DumBell-Retractions, 2×20-25rm,1010, 10s.
D3:S.A.DumBell-Shrugs, 2×9-12rm,4010, 120s.
We do D1 for 9-12 reps at a 4010 tempo, have 10 seconds to go to D2, for 20-25 reps at a 1010 tempo, take a 10 seconds breather and finish with another 9-12 reps on D1, 4010 tempo, then rest for 2 minutes.
After that we do the whole D1-3 Super-Set one more time. That’s it for D-Block. Now you’re almost finished, but not before you’ve done the “Finisher” !;-)
That’s Exercise E: Seated Cable-Rows, 1×50-60rm, 1010 Tempo, 120 TUT(Time Under Tension)
So you do only one set of Seated Rows at a 1010 tempo, for 50-60 reps! within 2 minutes!!
THEN you’re finished, literally !;-)
This is important for the bloodflow, mostly though because of the Hormonal Response to this, which is extremely favorable to restauration of tissues: recovery, regeneration, injury-repair!
And that’s all for Day 1, the Shoulder Rehab-Workout.
Day 2 for Lower Body follows the same set-up:
A1: Peterson Step-Ups for 20 to 25 reps at a 1010 tempo, 1 minute rest, right into…
A2: Leg-Curls for 6-8 reps at a 4010 tempo, 1 minute breather, back to A1 and repeat for 4 sets total. Then it’s…
B1: Split Squats for 3 sets of 9-12 reps, 4010, alternated with
B2: RDL’s(Romanian Deadlifts), 3x 9-12, also on a 4010 tempo, one minute rest in between stations B1&B2.
Then we go to C1&C2, That’s Lower Back and Abs alternated, so you do 9-12 reps on the Eccentric Back Extensions, rest for a minute, do 25 Crunches at a 1010 tempo, rest and repeat both for one more set each.
Then the Finisher: just sit in the Leg-Press machine, 50-60 full range reps with a 1010 tempo in a 120 second time-frame(this is tough !;-)
Now you’re all done for the day(you’ll need to rest; this is athletic training and very hard !;-)
But I know you’re a tough guy, so no sweat, eh?!
Wednesday is off, then you simply repeat the Upper Body Workout on Thursday, the Lower Body-one on Friday, and take the weekend off.
Repeat over the next weeks for a total of 6-8 workouts for Upper and Lower each, so for a total of 3-4 weeks.
Then it’s time for Phase II. But one thing at a time…
I hope all this is understandable, if not please don’t hesitate at all to call, email, message on facebook, whatever !;-)
With the videos and via mail/phone we should get this set up good, man !;-)
A Note on Overload: as you get stronger and your shoulder more stable, you will be able to do full reps on all sets with strict form and tempo. At that point you raise the weight, usually by the next step up: 5-10% more on average. That’s basically all you need now…
