My training History: I trained less than one year before competing in my first powerlifting meet as a teenager back in 1983. Before leaving the sport partially due to injuries in 2005 I achieved my elitefts status in the 198,220,242,275 & 308 weight class. Throughout these years I did have a 3 year run in the bodybuilding world. I have  degenerative joint disease, have had two shoulder surgeries (right shoulder now needs replaced), one full hip replacement, knee surgery, and herniation's in all three regions of my spine, Bone spurs (all joints). I can't even begin to list the number of muscle tears I have had, surgical and non surgical.  I am "The Mashed Up Meathead" and this is my story. 

You can find my training log archives HERE and my most current training log posts HERE. 

My best lifts are behind be but my best training is yet to come. 

* Unless otherwise noted the tempo of the work sets is about 1/2 of what most would consider normal. In most cases, if I did the set with normal temp what I fail at with 8-10 reps in training I could do for 20 reps with a normal tempo. This is to keep the joint stress down while increase the stress on the muscle. I have found this to work best for me provided the conditions listed in my training history above.

Wednesday, shoulders.

 

Warm-up, dumbbell side raises.

8 sets of 6 to 15 repetitions. These warm-up sets, the weight is really light, usually between 5 and 10 pound dumbbells. All I'm trying to do is to get some blood into the shoulders, loosen them up a little bit, and get ready to train.

I do a mixture. Some of the repetitions are to the front, some are to the side. This really, really seems to be the best warm-up that I've been able to find and do for my shoulders. Trust me, I've tried everything. It's an old standby throwback from probably the sixties, but nothing works better for me so I just use it before every shoulder training session and nothing works better.

The first couple sets feel like shit. Then I open up the range of motion as I can, as it begins to feel better with each rep and with each set. Once everything feels like it's working like it should, or the best it's going to work for the day, then I move on.

 

Side raises.

Instead of doing the swings like I normally do, I used a 45 degree angle with my arms and did seated side raises. I really wouldn't say these are seated. The way I do these is I kind of sit on a low glute hand raise, so it's way above parallel. It's kind of like the last squat session I did. It's not really far down, but it gives me a little bit of an angle that allows for a little bit better range of motion that allows me to feel the movement a little bit better. One warm-up set to just to kind of get used to the exercise, and then 4 work sets of 10 to 12 reps, each set to failure. Temples slightly controlled, but not too much.

 

Seated shoulder-press machine

Using a neutral grip. 3 warm-up sets with a quarter per side for 15 repetitions, and then started working up a quarter per side, and stopped at 4 quarters per side and did 6 sets of 10 reps there with 45 to 60 second rest period.

 

Rear delt raises using rear delt machine.

3 sets of 35 reps.

 

Cable front raises using the cable rope 

4 work sets of 15 reps with about 3 to 4 reps shy of failure.

 

Life Tip: For those with bad shoulders

* Put the belt around the pants BEFORE you put them on.

You can thank me later.