Hello,

I had arthroscopic surgery on October 29th, 2009 for a 9'o clock to 12'o clock posterior and anterior labral tear. It was repaired using 4 sutures.

My doctor recommended I stay in a sling for 6 weeks post op, and that I should be able to return to football at the 6 month point.

Now it's been 12 weeks. There have been a few times where I've moved it weird and was worried I hurt it, but I try to stay positive. I've been going to physio once a week and getting it stretched out which is really painful. I also noticed something weird where if I relax the muscles completely in the arm that had surgery, I can push on the outside of my deltoid and shift the muscle/make it crack. It would hurt very much to do this at the beginning but it's got better and doesn't hurt as much or happen as easily now.

The physio has had me doing 3 movements every day to assist in stretching the shoulder, they are: Putting my arm behind my back and pushing it up as far as I can go with my good arm and holding for 10 seconds, externally rotating as far as I can and holding it, and putting my arm on a table and learning over until I'm at 90 degrees or more and my arm is above my head.

Last Wednesday was the first time lifting weights with my shoulder. I went to the physio and he had me using light weights (3lb,5lb,8lb) lying on my good side and doing external rotations, side raises, and some other ones until failure. I was getting sharp pains while doing some of them but I am told this is just the scar tissue loosening. It was quite grueling but I trust that my physio knows what he is doing.

Yesterday was my first time doing upper body in the gym with assistance and supervision from the physio. Let me say, it was a very painful experience. It seems that he was pushing me rather hard, but again, I trust him. He is the head physio on my football team and also has worked with professional and Olympic athletes.

The ones he had me doing which caused lots of pain, which I hope was just loosening of the scar tissue, was hanging from a bar in a chin up position while attempting hang using all my weight and turn to the side. Another was push ups on a big exercise ball where you only go down a couple inches; ten times, and assisted chin ups. He basically said to just push through the sharp pain. He also had me doing some side and lateral raises with cables and some 15lb dumbbell presses. Does this seem like a little much for the first time?

When I got home from the gym, my shoulder ached like crazy and I didn't dare move it too much, so I just iced it, and its feeling a little better now. Another thing I am curious about is doing sprinting. When I saw my doctor last week, he said to wait another 6 weeks until sprinting as the surgery is still healing. When I asked my physio, he said I could start in the next week. Who should I listen to? Is my physiotherapist pushing me too hard and too fast? The physio is a very well respected professional in my city.

I would appreciate any thoughts or opinions.

Thank you

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