Bugbomb's Logbomb

[SeanHerbison]

Hey, I think he just called me old.

Weeelll.....

[bugbomb]

[bugbomb]

Heyoo.

I can't believe it's been 3 years since I last complained about / confessed to not lifting.

Quick updates:
- Divorced (long story, probably will not share)
- Different businesses (same general industry/area)
- Purple belt in BJJ a few months back (just like with my blue, not sure I really deserved it; there are days when athletic white/blue belts tune me up and then there are days when I catch my instructor with sneaky shit and think I should sign up for old-guy worlds).

I am currently recouping from a relatively minor case of COVID. Yes, I am sure I got it at the gym; Texas has been in full yeehaw mode since May; I started training again in June, hesitantly, and got more and more reckless as time went on. I had at least 3 instances where I trained with someone (5-6 minutes of sweating on each other directly) and then had that person test positive the next day. Finally got bit.

What brings me back here was a little wakeup call the other day. With consistent training (4-6 hours per week) on the mat and zero lifting, my weight dropped another ~10 pounds or so. Walking around between 165-170. My shoulders have always given me issues, but it's gotten really bad these past few months, to the point where it's keeping me from sleeping.

I was cleaning house the other day and went out back to shake out a couple of rugs. I realized that my left shoulder hurt so bad that I literally couldn't shake out the rug.

Hmm. Not ok. I'm running the risk of being that old guy who can't do regular stuff? It made me curious about what else this was going to limit (obviously it ain't good for jiu jitsu either), so I went to my rack to test a few things. I can't really hold the bar in position for any type of squat without pretty significant discomfort. HB, LB, FS - all out of reach for me right now.

I'm going to put special emphasis on chins and shoulder mobility. I have a set of Indian Clubs that I'll use to kick start that process. I can do chins and clubs every day (indoor equipment, high ceilings in my house).

Other than that, my two lifting days will be Tuesday and Saturday.

Saturday:
- Deadlift
- Push up training - gotta get to where ANY pressing movement doesn't hurt first

Tuesday:
- Squat variation (probably starting with goblet squats for a couple weeks while working on getting a functional rack position)
- Press training - same caveat as above

Feel free to chime in with any advice, people!

[hector]

So many thoughts.
(1) congrats on the purple belt! Huge! Wow!
(2) my shoulders got real bad for awhile in, I think, 2018. First I couldn't squat. Then I couldn't bench or deadlift. Legitimately depressing. They just hurt all the time, no matter what I was doing. Then I heard a podcast, Steve Maxwell on JRE, where Maxwell described how just hanging from a bar (palms facing forward) for a few minutes every day would fix all kinds of shoulder issues. Maxwell cited a book a shoulder surgeon had written. I was skeptical, but my insurance is shitty and expensive, and hanging is free, so I tried it. Built up to several sets of one minute almost every day. 2 weeks later my shoulders were good to go.
Maybe hanging did nothing. Maybe it was a placebo. Maybe its the time off from low bar squatting that helped. IDK. Whatever. My shoulders got fixed and I've been good since.
(3) Fuck low bar squats. I SSB squat now and think its a fundamentally better movement. If you can get a good SSB bar i strongly recommend it. Titan and Rogue are both awesome, Titan's is way cheaper and still awesome. (If you get titan make sure you get the 2.0 version. The 1.0 was dogshit.) I think you'll be able to SSB squat no matter how bad your shoulders are. And SSB squatting will give your shoulders a break.
(4) welcome back!

[mgil]

Hey, @bugbomb, welcome back!

Inline with @hector’s suggestions, I’d suggest a lot of pulling motion for the shoulders. Light and slow rows, face-pulls, etc. I had shoulder surgery back in March, and working on the posterior of the shoulder really helped getting things back in good order.

Good to see you again.

[bugbomb]

@hector thanks for the kind words and advice! I've been doing something similar - frequent sets of ~5-10 chin ups throughout the day. Did them very consistently with good results for a while, have slacked off and am already starting to feel the shoulder crap again. I will add some hangs in there as well. I had a good consult with BBM a year or two back around this issue, and their advice was to do the hangs, but keep the shoulder active; the argument was that we're not trying to "decompress" anything, but strengthen the muscles.

Also, dude - not sure how I forgot about the SSB! I actually had one years ago but sold it. It's probably the exact tool I need right now.

@mgil absolutely agree here. I need to rig up a good way to do face pulls - don't have a cable machine and most of my bands dry-rotted.

[mgil]

@bugbomb, I built my own cable and pulley system. I upgraded the pulleys as well. Good investment.

viewtopic.php?p=248498#p248498

@broseph and some others ( @Skander ) have also.

[Skander]

@bugbomb, I built my own cable and pulley system. I upgraded the pulleys as well. Good investment.

viewtopic.php?p=248498#p248498

@broseph and some others ( @Skander ) have also.

I strongly suggest just doing it a la carte, and using climbing accessory rope for the cable. It's so much easier to work with than coated cable and just as if not stronger. I use bowline knots at either end to hook to cheap caribeaners I got off Amazon. Don't get the ones that have the pinched side at the bottom (a bit like the number of 8) it's a pain to get them through the holes in attachments- get the ones that look more like a capital letter D. That's my 2 cents anyway.

[peez]

Welcome aboard - another grappler! (I'm a judoka) - and I can confirm the value of power lifting for grappling sport, it's really an "unfair advantage" (not really). I find the grappling helps with the soreness from a heavy weightlifting session the day before.