First work out in 10 weeks/need routine critique

[cward76]

Back in October I had an accident on my mountain bike which resulted in my ankle and foot being broke. I had to wear a cast for 8 weeks, a boot for another 3 weeks after the cast came off and now I have to wear an ankle brace for 5 more weeks.

The accident is explained in this thread in case anyone is interested.
MTB Crash

I continued to work my upper body out after the accident for several weeks. I was in the final weeks of the Book of Muscle intermediate program when the biking accident occurred. On the last work set of the last exercise of the program (seated military press to the front) something happened to my shoulders. It was really painful at the time, but it turns out that what ever happened was nothing serious, this is based on an exam by a orthopedic, a MRI and an evaluation by a Physical Therapist.
In case you want more details check this thread out.

Shoulder injury

I have been given the ok by both the doctor and the physical therapist to return to the Gym. I haven't lifted with my upper body for 10 weeks now. Except for leg press I started doing last week in physical therapy, body weight squats, and calf raises I have not done any weight training with my legs for 13 weeks.

I will do the following rountine for 3 weeks. The rep range I will use will be 15 reps. The first week I will pick a weight that I feel like I can do 25 times. The second week and third week I will use a weight that I can lift 15 times. I will do one warm-up set of 10 and two work sets of 15. I will only be going to the gym twice a week being that I go to physical therapy twice a week.

Upper body
Seated Cable Rows
Lateral Shoulder raises
Tricep Kick backs
Incline Dumbell Curls
Dumbell Flat press
In addition I will be doing a rehabilitation routine for my shoulders that is in the link that refers to my shoulder injury. The shoulder rehabilitation routine is being done twice daily.

Lower Body
Leg Extension
Leg Curl
Supine Hip Thigh Extension
Good Mornings

In addition to this I am doing leg press and calf raises twice weekly in physical therapy.


Ab routine done on both days, one set of each exercise
curl-up
toes to the sky
wrist to knee curl-up
knee-up

The physical therapist has ok'd all of the exercises in the upper body portion of the routine, I still have to get his ok for the lower body portion. I have also been through most of the routines in FAQ forum, none of them really seemed to fit my needs at this time.

Please let me know what you all think about my routine and if there is anything I have left out.

Thanks for the help.

[cward76]

I have decided that I am going to replace the seated cable rows with pull ups on the lat machine.


If anyone has any suggestions please let me know
Thanks

[The Smaniac]

Seeing as you are dealing with rehabilitation from numerous injuries, I'd say your physical therapist is going to be a better source for opinions on what you can/should be doing in a resistance workout. I'm certainly not qualified to tell you what types of lifts you should be doing when dealing with injuries.

So all I can offer is to say don't replace the seated rows with lat pulldown, do both instead if you can. They work different planes of movement, so if you do both you'll get a more complete back workout. And tricep kickbacks are a pretty lousy triceps exercise in my experience. Maybe triceps pushdowns or lying triceps extensions (skull crushers) would be a better alternative. But this is opinion, and I don't know enough about rehabilitation to say whether these exercises are alright for you to do, so consult your therapist first.

Other than that, focus on getting yourself well.

[cward76]

The Smaniac


Ok, I will do both seated cable rows and lat pull down. I will also do lying tricep extension instead of the kick backs.

My physical therapist basically gave a list of exercises I could do. This was done verbally. Also I have some rehabilitation exercises that he ask me to do in addition to the strength exercises. He wanted me to pick exercises such as rows and pull-ups to do for strength. He felt like my shoulders were a little further forward than they should be so I should be concentrating more on my back than my chest. Aside from that he seemed to think that my shoulders were in pretty good health. My Docotor agrees. The only exercise he told me not to do was Barbell Military press.
I posted this to get some feed back on the balance of the routine.

I will do both seated cable rows and lat pull down. I will also do lying tricep extension instead of the kick backs.


Thanks for the feed back that is what I was looking for.

[Tin Man]

I find kick back more effective for me...it has helped with stabalizing my rear deltoid. As for the lower body routine, once the threapist okays it I would add more compounds like leg press instead of extentions and RDL's or straight dead lifts in stead of curls.

for lats etc, I would add some chins,,,you may only get a couple of reps at first then finish them off with cable rows or pull downs until you can get enough reps on the chins.

[The Smaniac]

cward,
Not to overload your routine, but I swam competitively for 9 years and developed a pretty severe chest/back muscle imbalance similar to what your therapist commented about. The most effective exercise I found for it was barbell bent-over rows. Possibly using those instead of or in addition to seated cable rowing will better target your rear delts and upper back muscles. Good luck with the rehab!

[cward76]

I did the upper body work out below

Seated Cable Rows
Pull downs on the lat machine
Lateral Shoulder raises
Lying Dumbbell tricep extension
Incline Dumbbell Curls
Dumbbell Flat press

I was a lot weaker than I thought I would be. Also everything felt funny, no pain but just not comfortable. I guess that should be expected after having the longest lay off from the weights in more than 5 years. I guess I have forgotten what is like to start out lifting again.


Tin Man

I defiantly prefer compounds to some the isolation exercises I have in the routine above. I am doing leg press in physical therapy twice a week, so my thinking was in designing the routine was do some isolation exercises to compliment the compound movement I am doing in PT. What do you think about this approach?

I will probably add chins/pull ups back to my routine soon. Before the injury I was doing quit well with these two exercises, and they are two of my favorite exercises. Imagine I probably could do 12 to 15 chin-ups right now, but I want to gradually work up to that amount of stress if you know what I mean. Next week I might try doing some on the weight assited pull-up machine and see how that goes.

The Smaniac

Do you think I could accomplish the same thing with bent over dumbbell rows? At this time I’m a little wary of anything that involves a barbell and upper body.

Thanks again for the advice everyone I appreciate it.

[Tin Man]

I'm not a fan of isolated movements...but if it works it works...I would think about adding lunges...would get more hip and I find this translates well for any sport or activity...Bill will be able to give more insight into joint loading, strength and flexibilty equations.

[gettinhuge]

I like ISO movements (especially to superset with a compound movement) I sometimes feel by some of the posts in here I think I am the only one that likes ISO movements, however if you find what works for you that is what you need. Just my opinion

[cward76]

I talked to the physical therapist today, and they said it was ok to strength train my legs.

Lower Body
Leg Curl
Supine Hip Thigh Extension
Good Mornings
Squats

I have decided that I will drop the leg extensions and just do squats with the bar only. I'm am only using the bar because I do not want to fatigue my muscles too much since I am doing leg press twice a week in physical therapy. Let me know if this makes since?

Thanks

[cward76]

I have finished doing the routine above. I have set up the routine below as a continuation of what I have been doing.

In the routine below I am upping the volume a bit from the two day a week routine above. I will be doing three work sets for some exercises and two work sets on others. Reps for the most part will be 15. I will be using my 16 rep max on these. I will also be following Eric Cressey's rotator cuf programas part of the day 3 work out.


Day 1 Upper Back/bi's & wrists
Dumbbell one-arm bent over row 3x15
Reverse D-bell flys 2x15
Pull-ups 2x12 warm-up done on lat machine
Ex-bar curls 3x15
barbell wrist curls 2x15

Day 2 Lower Body
Single leg press 3x15
Squats 2x15
Leg curls 2x15
back extensions in roman chair 2x15
Good Mornings 3x15
Dead Lifts 2x15
Seated Calf raises 3x15

Day 3 Chest, shoulders & tris
D-bell lying pullover 2x15
Incline D-bell bench press 3x15
Ez-bar reverse grip lying tricep ext 3x15

Eric Cressey's rotator cuf program
Barbell Cuban Press 3x8
L-lateral raise 1x10

Superset 2x12
Side lying db abduction to 45 degrees
Low Pulley External Rotation

Ab routine done at the beginning of each work out. Knee-up 1x15
Toes to Sky 1x15
Wrist to knee curl-up 1x15
Russian twist 1x15

Please let me know what you all think. My goal is to prep my self for a more strenuous routine once I have finished this routine ie heavier weights.

Once I have completed this routine I will probably pick a routine from the routine thread in the faq forum.