[benno]

I've been back week from a fortnight in Font, which has left me with tons of motivation and a catalogue of known weaknesses to turn it against. However, I have temporarily trashed what the physio thinks is my subscapularis tendon on the front of my right shoulder. Prognosis is good, he reckons, and it seems to be healing a bit and the rehab's moving along well already, but I'm left with a lot of spare time that I would normally spend climbing (inside, London-based) unable to do much.

Mercifully, I have access to a really good gym, so I've been doing the following:

• Running on a treadmill, mainly to stop myself getting pudgy without climbing to fill my time, but also hopefully to drop a kilo or two of fat.
• Rotator cuff exercises (as much as I can without pain) using a cable machine
• Lots of stretching, mainly hip turnout stuff (frogs, pigeons etc.) and box splits work-ups.

I'd like to do some more core, but I'm quite limited by not being able to hang from a bar or do press-ups at the moment. I've been doing front and back dishes and straight and twisting crunches. I've also been doing some light-ish (~85% BW) squats. Does anyone have anything else I should be doing?

I could also be working on some aspects of my pull strength. I was going to try bent over rows and biceps curls next session and see if my shoulder complains. What sort of rep/set structure would people recommend if I can do these?

Obviously, fingerboarding is out of the question, which is annoying.

PS -  I know this will essentially be rehashing some information from other threads. I'm also partly after the motivating effect of strangers from the internet telling me to pull my finger out and do some things.

[Ti_pin_man]

Inner and outer Core and flex and theraband for the shoulders.  Aerobic not essential but might allow irate the boredom. Shoulders take ages! 

[duncan]

You don't say what your Physio. has said you can and can't do. Ask them if you're unclear.

 Perhaps you're already doing these but side-planks will engage the rotator cuff muscles in a slightly more specific fashion than theraband or cable machine exercises (miminal shoulder rotation occurs in climbing). Start on knees/elbows, feel your pecs and lats. to make sure they are not working, and check your scapula is not winging (use a mirror or get someone to film you).  Side planks will also work the oblique abdominal muscles which may be of slight benefit if you spend a lot of time hanging off knee-bars.

[benno]

Good suggestion duncan, thanks. I'll have a crack at those later and see how I get on. Sorry for not being more specific about my limitations, but I thought the first post was getting a bit waffly as it was. Physio has just said "no climbing" and nothing that hurts, for now.

I'll have a go at describing my pain-free ROM, starting from my arm hanging by my side:

Arm out in front, palm down	Arm about 10 degrees off vertical, not too bad
Arm out in front, palm up	Arm about 20 degrees off vertical, not so good
Arm out to one side, palm down	Arm about 20 degrees above horizontal, not great
Arm out to one side, palm up	Arm about 10 degrees above horizontal. Again, noticeably worse than palm down.
Arm behind me	Almost anything starts to hurt quite badly at the front of my shoulder

[tk421a]

I do reverse hyperextensions and/or back extensions. I get occassional bad lower back pain and this seems to help by strengthening things out. I always think that most core workouts are too focused on abs and not enough on the posterior chain.