Concept2 Forum

I am a 66 year old male who has regularly used a concept erg since the 1980's and cannot conceive of life without .
i recently had rot cuff surgery to repair a 2cm tear in my supraspinatus tendon.
6 incisions, 4 pins and 6 weeks in a sling until PT starts
i would like to hear from those of you who have knowledge or has gone thru this, especially concerning recovery time.
my surgeon is unfamiliar with ergs and i will do all that the PT person demands of me.
I tried rowing before my surgery and it was 'unpleasant"
(pardon my spelling and grammar - left hand typing is awkward at best)
thanks


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as an ortho surgeon who ergs: you should be fine for erging once the repair has healed and you have gone through therapy...i am a trauma orthosurgeon and not a sports/ shoulder specialist so i can't give you exact time frame. i would estimate you could row by 3 months post surgery with the caveat that you have to get through your prescribed therapy succesfully. american football players, baseball players, other throwing athletes and weightlifters etc, are able to return to sports after RC surgery. rowing is much less stressful on the rotator cuff, especially the supraspinatus, which is most commonly torn, than many other sports..........biking and spinning would be great training substitutes in the meantime. last caveat: your particular tear and surgery are best known by you and your surgeon, so ultimately make sure you talk with your doc. perhaps providing a concept 2 short erg technique video would help him/her guide your recovery? good luck and best wishes...wsmith md

Hi Zoomster. The odds are strongly in your favour that you'll be back into it before too long with almost if not completely full strength

I'm more into weights than ergs but I had a full thickness supraspinatus tear repaired about 7 years ago (then aged 58). Surgeon said it was a real mess when he opened it up - "by far the worst I've seen" according to his op notes ... and he'd had 35 years experience with shoulder surgery. From memory I too had a sling for about 6 weeks. After a bit of PT I got good mobility and strength back and was ready to compete in indoor rowing comps in a short time.

Edit: I just looked back over my weight training log. If it helps boost your confidence any, I had the surgery in the third week of Feb 2007 and I was doing bodyweight pull-ups and 160kg on the iso-lat wide pull-down machine by late April - i.e. pretty much back to full strength for pulling movements.

This sort of injury/repair generally affects shoulder abduction movements more than pulling with your elbows tucked - as with erging. So, for example, it limited my bench press for maybe a year afterwards and my overhead pressing has remained weaker than usual ever since (around 55% rather than the more typical 75% of bench press 1RM).

good info, thanks.
i spoke to my dr yesterday (4 weeks post surg) and she is saying 4 to 6 month after surg would be a likely date to start erg. ymmv, but
she was leaning to 6 months.FWIW, she does not erg but brother does.
For now, i will be using the treadmill and bike.
as noted, my recovery depends on how I respond to PT (starts in 2 weeks) and if I do not do anything 'stupid', like go out today and try to move some of this 16 inches of snow.
I will keep the list posted on progress.
again thanks to posters.

Last February I was gold panning with my fiancee on the island of Bohol. My fiancee later admitted it was her fault and that we erred by not burning a certain herb that grows there (this is all serious btw) and notifying the water spirits that we meant them no harm. At any rate I slipped and fell down the side of a brook (hmm...it did feel like someone grabbed by ankle) and to protect my head I extended my right arm and tore the supraspinatus muscle (massive tear, 3.5cm).

I came back and had it repaired at the beginning of May. Surgery was uneventful. I did PT for a dozen weeks and worked diligently at stretches. Looking back I could have done rowing at about 6 months carefully. In January (8 months out) I lost my job and had time on my hands and put my erg back together (a model D) and started rowing. Since I was quite out-of-shape (I'm 63 but rarely admit it) I started slowly, 15 minutes/day, about 1000C/wk, and over 9 weeks I'm up to 6 hours/week (~4000C). During these 9 weeks my shoulder would get a bit sore, but appropriately so. More out of boredom I tried some HIIT ( High Intensity Interval Training) where I went from my normal 560C/hr-760C/hour, to 1150-1250, with no issue at all with my shoulder. I had some rotator cuff damage prior to the incident, which probably made the slip/fall worse than it could have been, and today, my shoulder is better than ever.

In summation I think, as someone posted earlier that 6 months could be a good start. Start light, go easy. Don't do what I did with the HIIT. It did not hurt my shoulder but did hurt my lower back--ouch.

zoomster wrote:I am a 66 year old male who has regularly used a concept erg since the 1980's and cannot conceive of life without .
i recently had rot cuff surgery to repair a 2cm tear in my supraspinatus tendon.
6 incisions, 4 pins and 6 weeks in a sling until PT starts
i would like to hear from those of you who have knowledge or has gone thru this, especially concerning recovery time.
my surgeon is unfamiliar with ergs and i will do all that the PT person demands of me.
I tried rowing before my surgery and it was 'unpleasant"
(pardon my spelling and grammar - left hand typing is awkward at best)
thanks


0

How has the rotator cuff done since the surgery ?