Well...Progress & Regression

   Sorry that I haven't posted in a little while. I've been quite busy and frankly forgot about this blog. I started to move on in the steps and my shoulder felt pretty great. However, last Monday I started doing Insanity and working out (like riding bikes and stuff) and on Wednesday I hurt my shoulder again. In the first few days of doing everything my shoulder felt pretty good... I would change the moves as I needed to hopefully not harm my shoulder.

   On Wednesday, during an Insanity video, they had a certain push up that worked the triceps. I attempted to do it, and from then on my shoulder has been hurting when doing certain movements. I quit trying to do the rest of that exercise and was extra careful with any other exercises throughout the workout. My shoulder wasn't hurting too bad during the day, it just hurt when I did certain movements. I went back to the heat, massage, and oil step both Saturday and Sunday night. I did some of the easier exercises last night but this morning I woke up to my shoulder absolutely throbbing!

   I got the heat pack and continued to massage it afterwards, but the pain was not going away. We were getting ready for our workout and I finally put some oil on my shoulder and it felt better within about five minutes and I was able to do our workout with barely any pain!

   I have decided that the oil is definitely an essential part of the pain reduction and I would be in a much worse mood right now if I didn't have it!

   I will post again when I continue onto the next step in the recovery process.

Moving On

   Last night I moved onto the next two steps of the recovery program. Steps 3 & 4 can be done at the same time. The book says that if any of the exercises are hurting your shoulder, make sure to stop and rest and go back to Step 2 by heating and massaging your shoulder until it does not hurt anymore.

   Step 3 consists of several balance and other exercises that helps your body get back in tune with every part of your body. The idea is to do things that require small movements that may or may not use your whole body. For example, in balancing all of your muscles make tiny movements together to help you keep your balance. All of these tiny movements in all of your muscles helps them work together.

   This step was not very hard to accomplish. The balancing exercises were quite easy and so were the proprioception exercises (i.e. touching nose with finger, etc.). I did not make it through the whole last section of exercises because they were hurting my shoulder a tiny bit. Most of those exercises involved small muscle movements in your shoulder, so I stopped early on those.

   Step 4 consists of stretching exercises for your neck, back, chest, and shoulder. I found these to be very easy to do but harder to hold the recommended 60 seconds because it was pulling weird on my muscles or I didn't know if I had already held it for 60 seconds or not.

   Overall, moving on went quite well for me. It didn't hurt my shoulder very much and I am confident that in the next week I will be able to do all of the exercises in Step 3.

Starting Over

   Well...I apologize for not starting my recovery program sooner, but I'm starting over now. I will do the same thing as mentioned before and use the same products.

   Also, I will be starting Insanity on June 4 to get in shape! I will have to be careful of my shoulder until it is fully healed but I strongly believe that working out and getting in shape will strengthen the rest of body so that my shoulder girdle is stronger and will hopefully help my rotator cuff injury as well. I will be updating this blog weekly to give everyone an update on how my recovery is going. I am hoping that in eating better and strengthening myself will have a positive effect on my shoulder recovery.

   I am planning on taking vitamins every day (starting today) to give my body the nutrients it deserves and give my shoulder the vitamins it needs to heal.

Apology

   For all those who are reading this, I am sorry. I have not posted anything in a while because I have not moved on in my therapy like I thought that I was going to. I am currently a college student and finals are in 2 weeks. I am also in my roommate's dance and the performances are next weekend...so I have been quite busy. I was planning on going on to Step 3 this last weekend but I did not because I was too busy and I also injured my shoulder slightly Wednesday because I worked it a little too hard in Core and More class. I am planning on just putting my therapy on hold until I am done with my exercise classes and this dance so that I can truly rest my shoulder. Part of this program is not to do any stretching or exercises for the shoulder until Step 5, but as it hurts, I stretch it and some of my exercise classes have been hurting it. I will still put the hot pack on it and massage it as it hurts, but I am going to hold off moving on to the next step until I don't have to use it for anything anymore so that it can heal correctly.

Core & Strength

   I took Core & Strength class last night. That class definitely worked my shoulder harder than the others and I had to take many breaks, but my shoulder actually feels pretty good. I did therapy before class and before I went to bed. During class we used weights and I did the best that I could until I just couldn't do it anymore. It was definitely the most that I've done with my shoulder in a while!

   Overall, today my shoulder actually feels pretty good. I didn't have time to do therapy on it this morning, but I will do it later tonight when I get home. I hope that everything continues feeling this good. I am thinking that this weekend I will move on to Step 3 in the program and I will write about how the first day of that goes.

Hip-Hop

   Well, I have some good news and some bad news. Last night I did Hip-Hop Hustle and my shoulder started hurting. We had a set of moves that we kept our arms above our head or parallel to the ground and after just a few short minutes of doing these moves my shoulder started crying out to me in pain. :(

   My shoulder continued to hurt somewhat throughout the rest of the class...but...the good news is that after the class was over it stopped hurting within a half hour! Previously, anytime that I do something that hurts my shoulder like that, it tends to hurt all night and disrupts my sleep. Well, this time the pain went away pretty soon. I didn't even go home right away and do my therapy! I am very happy with this progress and hope that it gets better and better. :)

Week 2

  My second week went pretty well. My shoulder has less pain and I think that I am almost ready to move on to the next step in this 7 step recovery program. I got sick at the beginning of the week and neglected to do my therapy until about Wednesday, but I did it after that and it really feels a lot better. It hasn't been hurting, which is really nice! The only time this last week that it hurt was Saturday afternoon. I did the therapy and it didn't take the pain away but after about 15 minutes or so after taking some Tylenol the pain subsided.

  Overall, my week went pretty well. I think sometime this week I will move onto the next step and I will definitely write a blog about what I did and how it went.