RippedNRich.oRg

As I said at the end of my last post, I sure did receive a response from Coach McD.

Here’s my journal entry:

July 11, 2007

Coach McD’s Response

When I woke up this morning the soreness behind my right shoulder blade had significantly lessoned.

When I checked my email, I was happy to see that Coach McD had responded to my letter and I was most impressed with his lengthy response.

Here it is:

Hi James,

Funny you should mention the loose shoulder…

I played on a Jr. Olympic volleyball team in high school, back in the late ’80’s, and then on a serious USVBA club team later in college. I’m 6′04, and my position was strong-side hitter. I actually hit with both arms, depending on the called play, or the quickset (one). We used to warm-up by standing near a wall, and spiking the ball down onto the floor so that it would bounce up, into the wall, and move upward and back, toward the hitter, so that you could continue striking the ball over and over again without having to catch it. We did this thousands of times, over the years, to get loose.

I was also the middle blocker. To block in volleyball, I would take a step or two to the spot where I needed to set the defense. The side blockers would then set up next to me on either side, and we would jump together against the offensive strike. The blocking motion goes from arms down, to arms straight up -while jumping. This occurred every time the other team was in the offensive play. My shoulders got pretty loose as well. One or the other would pop out, just for a moment, as you described, usually when landing. I had many spells with a sling, two or three weeks at a time.

I also played baseball, one year of football, two years of basketball, and golf. There was a while there, when my left shoulder would pop so loudly during my backswing that my buddies would say something like “Oh my god man, doesn’t that hurt when it does that?” I only heard it when I practiced. I was so into the shot when on a course that I never even heard it there. The point is that I know exactly what you are talking about, and here’s what has helped me:

Free weights.

Lifting weights over the years has minimized nearly every sports related injury I’ve ever had to the point that I do not feel at this time that I have any real or impairing sports injuries from my youth that have followed or lingered along with me to the present day. In my non-medical opinion, great athletes play their game loose, and relaxed. Muscular tension slows and restricts the range of motion. You can watch the biggest, most muscle-bound boxer fight, and I guarantee you that he is at his best when his arms are relaxed, and he is loose. I feel that most injuries occur when a guy tenses or tightens up. My earlier experience as a police officer demonstrated the same principle on accident scenes where alcohol was a factor. The people who were really loaded, or even passed out at the time suffered far fewer injuries as a result of being in a serious state of relaxation. The person who saw it coming almost always tensed up, and generally suffered greater physical injuries as a result.

This type of shoulder injury occurs, in my humble, non-professional opinion, when the connective tissues are stretched repeatedly due to the lack of muscular support -when the muscles are relaxed during strenuous activity. It isn’t really an injury per se, as much as it is simply the fact that all of the tendons and ligaments are longer than they should be, which allows the limb to slip out of the socket. Again, this is based completely on personal experience, and some thought.

The good news is, that several doctors have told me that connective tissue does shrink back a bit on its own, over time. That implies that sitting around on your can is the best strategy. I can’t sit still long enough, nor am I willing to suffer the atrophy which would result from that implication.

I have found that weight lifting speeds up the process, in part because lifting automatically strengthens the muscles surrounding the connective tissues which lends support to the joint, and partly because the actual act of lifting weights also works directly on the connectors themselves. When you tax the muscle with free weights, as opposed to nautilus type machines, you must employ all of the stabilizing muscles and ligaments just to keep the movement in good form. Muscle tissue is torn down, and rebuilds itself with more fibers, adding strength, bone density increases, and the joint seems to suck itself back into place. You can’t quote me on this because people would laugh at your unqualified source. You can take this for what it’s worth, from one separating-shoulder(s)-having-guy to the next; it really worked for me. My shoulder hasn’t popped in ages. It hasn’t popped out in years, and thanks to creatine, I have never been stronger in my life.

As the pull-ups go, I would set a chair just below, and just away from the bar. Hang from the bar, bend and cross your legs, and put your lowest tow on the seat of the chair. You can assist your pull-up by simply pushing your toe against the seat of the chair. Use a lot of assist in the beginning, and gradually get yourself to the point that the chair is unnecessary. You may not want to hang all of the way down in the first several weeks. Don’t let your arms straighten completely out, as that would start to pull the arm out of the socket. As your shoulders get stronger, and tighter, you can gradually begin to straighten them out a bit more each week.

At USAIRBORNE school down at Ft. Benning, they made us do pull-ups before every meal. I got to where I could do about 20 or so after three weeks of that. The first week, many of us needed another dirty rotten leg (the instructor’s pet names for the trainees) to hold our feet, in the same crossed and bent form I just mentioned, so that we could push off of their hands while we got used to doing the pull-ups. By the third week, we were all knocking them out pretty easily but without help.

I would think seriously about hitting the weights. Don’t kill yourself in the beginning. Light to medium weight, 10-12 reps, and go from there. It just might work for your shoulders like it did mine.

Hope this gives you something to try. Keep me posted on your progress.

Mark

CoachMcD

Wow! I was hoping for some sort of a response, but I certainly was not anticipating something so lengthy, especially given that he got back to me the next day. These Million Dollar Body Coaches obviously take their coaching seriously… or at least Coach McD does… and a fellow shoulder-dislocator to boot… how about that!

With support like this, I’m sure to make it through the 90 days of P90X!

This was not the last time I would correspond with Coach McD. Click on his name to read more about him and his experience with Million Dollar Body and the Million Dollar Body Coaching Program.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 11:19 am and is filed under Exercise, MDB Coaching, MDB Community, P90X, Rich, Ripped. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.