Torn Rotator Cuff

I trashed mine about 6 years ago (tore the supraspinatus hanging off a rock), fortunately I had 2 good physios at the time, I got a total ban from any upper body weights (including abs work not on the machines) and a load of massage & electro therepy.

When the tear was repairing I did lots of exercises to strengthen the rotor cuff itself (all very light weight, usually with a dynaband tied to the floor or a door), but as a previous poster said, nothing that involved my arm going above shoulder height until I got the OK from the physio.

For the massage, make sure you get someone who really knows their stuff - to help the rotor cuff it needs deep tissue manipulation and if the physio gets it wrong they can do a lot of damage with that kind of work.

I fell off my bike in the Folsom Olympic Triathlon last August. My right shoulder was extremely sore. Rested a few weeks, then went into my off season routine with weights. My shoulder got progressively worse. I finally went to doctor and physical therapist. I should have before. This was at the 4 month point. Cortisone shot and physical therapy identified a probable partially torn or strained rotator cuff. The PT gave me zero weight exercises to get range of motion back and said if you feel ANY pain stop. I thought a little pain was ok, but the injury persisted another 2 months. I went back and the PT said do not work unless ZERO pain. This time I got it and listened. I stopped all training to rest and focus on the physical therapy. I also began seeing a chiropractor and professional massage therapist on a weekly basis. Since then I have been steadily improving. I just started training again (11 months since my fall) and I'm going very slow. Cycling, weights, very light if shoulder or neck are involved, yoga with no major shoulder poses, and full body stretching. I take it day by day and know I will heal, but it takes time and will take time.

Now I know why pitchers with rotator cuff surgery are out one year minimum, and sometimes do not make it back to big leagues.

If you haven't had a damaged shoulder, strengthen and stretch it wisely.

I partially tore both my rotator cuffs years ago either through boxing or weight training.  Over the years I'd had more partial tears doing lifting. 

The cycle would be injury, rehab, pain free after about 1 year.  So when it happened I knew to expect to be nursing it for that long.  I was always able to stay fit and work around it.  For instance, one YEAR I did nothing for chest other than dumbbell presses with the 50lb dumbbells (usually my warm up weight).  But I did the reps very slow such that a set of 10 would take 2:30 and my pecs would be screaming at me and I would literally be at muscular failure.  After a year, when things felt good, I went heavy and hadn't lost even 1lb of max rep strength.  So don't feel as though going light is a limitation.

Also, when I couldn't press, I could often use a seated pec deck machine without shoulder pain so experiment.  Depending on the tear sometimes light overhead lifting won't hurt where pressing forward does (that was my case with supraspinatus tendon tear).

My surgeon explained that a tear of up to 50% of the tendon thickness is often stable and won't need surgical repair.  It doesn't heal, but eventually becomes pain free and non-symptomatic.    This is probably fine for most people, but if you are a weight lifter you will eventually overpower that 50% of the remaining tendon.  Which I did last fall.  My supraspinatus tore completely through making a horrible tearing sound and my arm was not useful anymore.

So I had it stitched back to the bone using 4 screws, a tear in my labrum was repaired, and I had bone removed to relieve impingement.  There was a 6 month rehab cycle but it didn't stop me much from triathlon training.  I was swimming about 2 months later and even competed in a swim meet around the 3 month timeframe.  I'm back up to full strength in the weight room except for chest presses which I'm still slowly progressing on.  The shoulder is nearly completely pain free and better than it has been in 10 years.

My other shoulder shows the partial tear that has been there for as long as I can remember and there's impingement there too so I'm going to go back after triathlon season and have it done again over there just to avoid a catastrophic failure later.