Monday, August 13, 2007

shoulder feeling better, or at least not worse

Yesterday I climbed at GVAC for about an hour then lifted arms. Felt good then and now, the next day. No shoulder issues. All the stretching I've done seems to have made me generally more flexible. A friend even mentioned to me last week that I'm "pretty flexible for a big guy". Which was surprising because I don't feel flexible or big. Anyways, I increased weight on the close grip yesterday - 2 sets of 12 at 135 lbs then 2 sets of 12 at 155 lbs. Well, maybe my last set was more like 10. I went through this exercise fairly quickly, with about 2 minutes rest between sets. Again I concentrated on pulling my shoulder blades together, making a stable, flat base for my shoulders on the bench. And my repititions were slow, with pauses at the top and bottom, really paying attention to how my shoulder felt. Then I did 3 sets of 20 dips, triceps cable push-downs with the bar, and standing barbell curls where I gradually increased weight, for sets of 8, up to 95 lbs. Actually the set at 95 lbs, my fourth and final set, was 7 reps. Lastly I did some overhead squats with no weight on the Smith Machine. This is an exercise Kevin Brown recommended to me as part of my shoulder rehabilitation. I use the Smith Machine because my hamstrings, back, and shoulders do not yet have the flexibility to get into a proper squat. The fixed track lets me push myself into a correct path. I guess the point of this exercise is to force me to pull my shoulder blades together. If so, it seems to work.

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