That went better than expected.

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

• BB Rows
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 7
• Seated Cable Rows
  • 90 x 15
  • 90 x 15
  • 90 x 12
• Shrugs
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 12
• Wide Neutral-grip Pulldowns
  • 70 x 15
  • 80 x 15
  • 90 x 15
  • 100 x 15
  • 90 x 15
• Incline DB Curls
  • 20e x 10
• BB Curls
  • 20 x 50
• 15 minutes elliptical

My shoulder still isn’t 100%, but it’s better every day. So today was a bit cautious, wanting to feel things out.

The big change I made? Going slower. I spent more time on the eccentric motion. Not necessarily going slower, like 2-0-4-0 count or anything. But more like normally my eccentric motion is merely something you have to do because that’s how our skeletal and muscular structures work, and so I have to do it in order to get back to the concentric motion again. Well, today I put more “meaning” into things. I’ve dabbled in this, but because I’ve been more concerned with strength and powerlifting style stuff (i.e. we don’t care how much weight you lower, it’s how much weight you lift… it’s “lifting” not “lowering”) well, that’s how it’s been. But I have been thinking that due to injuries, aging, and wanting to continue doing this for a long time that I may have to change up and adopt differnet protocols… including a more bodybuilder like style with moderately heavy weights, higher reps, more tricks for intensity (e.g. rest-pause, cluster sets, supersets, etc.). Ways to build without beating myself up so much.

So anyways, much of today actually wasn’t done towards this, but more because I wanted to be as gentle as possible to my shoulder. The above was a side-effect. But who knows… I’ve been giving it more and more thought. We’ll see. In part, its why I’m kinda like Paul Carter’s stuff, because I feel like that can still work to maintain some level of strength, but I can focus more on building.

As for how things went…

Of course, no chin-/pull-ups. 🙂

Rows went fine… dropped weight a hair and worked to be a bit slower, as I noted above.

But this felt like not enough work, so I added some seated cable rows for higher reps. I figured it would be a little less on the shoulder, but give me a good stretch and range of motion. It paid off. Felt good on my shoulder — kinda like the pulling at the bottom of the motion helping to move things into place a bit. Was more a good hurt than a bad hurt.

I also opted for different pulldowns. Instead of using a supine or pronated grip, I thought to try a neutral grip. I used that one wide bar with the neutral handles, and it was… different, but alright. No idea how much weight to use, went really light, worked up a bit. The range of motion isn’t as much because the shoulder blades come together (bar doesn’t get much lower than my nose/mouth, instead of touching my chest), but that’s alright. Again, really worked on being slower, more controlled.

We’ll see where this leads me. I actually might spend another week at this, then adjust things a bit because I feel like I’m “off injury” and can try normal things again. So, I should probably flip through Paul’s books again.