Post-Op Personal Training Testimonial: Bridging the Gap Between Physical Therapy and Physical Fitness
Post-Op Personal Training Testimonial
Most fitness testimonials (and before-and-after videos) are vague at best, misleading at worst. For this testimonial video, we wanted to actually take the time to walk through the program and progression we took our client through, so you can see exactly how we created these results, from beginning to end.
The Initial Consult
Current Fitness Challenges
At 38 years of age, the client was was post-op: recovering from labral repair surgery on each of his shoulders. He had two 360 degree tears, in other words fully separated labrums, with the left requiring 9 anchors and the right requiring 7. To make matters more difficult, he developed a Grade 2 AC Joint shoulder separation during Physical Therapy after the surgery. Now six months removed from his first surgery and three months from his second, he was afraid about not being able to regain proper function of his arms at all! He told us he was having a lot of trouble lifting his left arm above his head, he had lost all of his previous strength, and that even shampooing his hair had gotten difficult!.
Goals
Our client stated that he wanted to regain full use of his shoulders and “get in shape”. Since “get in shape” can mean a lot of things, we pressed in and quantified a few of his goals:
- Return to normal day-to-day activities
- Regain the ability to do push ups
- Drop 15lbs to get back to his pre-surgery weight
For most of our clients, dropping 15lbs and doing pushups would be a pretty easily attainable goal, but in this case, we had some pretty major challenges to work around. We knew that none of these goals would be possible if we couldn't get his shoulders back in action.
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The First 60 Days
Client's best effort flexing at Days 1 and 60
Our client began this in-home training program with very limited use of his arms, particularly with his ability to reach overhead. Physical Therapy had done a good job rebuilding passive range of motion, but he had not yet regained the ability to do active movement. Therefore, to build a proper foundation for exercise, we focused on four key areas:
- Increase Mobility
- Improve Muscle Balance
- Achieve Proper Movement
- Regain Confidence in Using Arms
To accomplish this, we focused on improving scapular mobility, increasing thoracic spine rotation, and improving muscle balance. Some of the exercises included serratus slides, wall washes, Y's T's & I's with both bands and dumbells, internal/external rotation, farmer's carry, banded rows, thoracic rotations, lunging thoracic rotations, and overhead squats. We also did a lot of foam rolling of the lats and thoracic spine to begin and end our workouts.
At the end of the first 60 days, we made HUGE strides in our client’s mobility. In the picture you see here, our client is doing his best to get his arms into a “flex” position at his sides in each photo. Clearly, the movement achieved at Day 60 was a significant improvement from the starting point.
In case you were wondering, we were SUPER excited about this progress! Our client was starting to feel more normal again and was really energized. At this point, he was starting to get that "eye of the tiger" that every trainer wants for their clients! With some bigtime momentum going, it was time to hit the next phase of the program.
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Days 60 to 120
Client Flexing at Days 60 and 120
Still, after all this exciting progress, we still had some work to do in building confidence in the left shoulder. Our client was heavily guarding his left arm in a lot of movements, admittedly due to the shoulder separation he experienced during Physical Therapy. So, we recognized it wasn't time to increase the weight or load for his exercises yet, and instead, we increased the intensity! This would prove to accomplish a few things:
- Improve progress toward weight-loss goals by burning more calories
- Improve cardiovascular endurance and health
- Further increase range of motion by really warming muscles up during these grueling and sweat-filled workouts.
- Counteract client's shoulder guarding by shifting his focus toward the intensity of the exercise
The goal of each workout was to really loosen the muscles in and around the shoulder via exercise and blood flow. That means, for the best results, we had to really get after it! We also utilized warm weather outdoors to push the intensity of some of these workouts to the next level. Most of these routines were structured as follows:
- 5-10 minutes of cardio to warm up
- Ten minutes of shoulder exercises with bands and dumbbells - no rest between sets
- Circuit includes 8 exercises of roughly 10 reps/exercise with no rest between each exercise
- Exercises themselves Rotated between shoulder and leg exercises (including a lot of compound movements)
- 3 rounds with a 3 minute rest between rounds 2 and 3
Comparing Day 60 to Day 120, you can see that the client's shoulder mobility drastically improved. Our client now regained both range of motion and confidence, fully returning to all day-to-day activities. Also, progress toward his weight loss goal was steadily increasing, and he could now push-ups! Our client's motivation was at an all time high, his trust in his shoulder was high, and his trust in his trainer was even higher! It was time to step up the workouts once again.
.Day 120 to Day 180
Client Flexing at Days 120 and 180
For the final phase, it was finally time to increase the load and weights used during exercise. That said, we didn’t want to go overboard, so we decided the best next phase of training for our client was to focus on time under tension. We derived this routine from German Volume Training principles, and our approach is outlined as follows:
- Day 1: Chest/Back
- Day 2: Legs
- Day 3: Rest
- Day 4: Shoulders/Arms
- Day 5: Rest
- Training Principle 1: Perform 10 sets of 10 reps of a multijoint movement (i.e. squat, pushup, row) for each bodypart trained
- Training Principle 2: Each repetition has a tempo of 4 second negative, 0 second pause, 1 second concentric contraction
- Training Principle 3: Rest 60 seconds between sets
- Training Principle 4: Choose one single joint movement for each bodypart and perform 3 sets of 10 maintaining principles 2 and 3 above.
We also focused a little more on nutrition during this phase, although our client’s regular diet was admittedly already pretty solid. We eliminated dairy and white flour from his diet, and we increased protein intake. For supplementation, we recommended two protein and one post-workout supplements.
The results really speak for themselves when watching the video. Just as we expected, this last phase really transformed his physique! Increasing the resistance and time under tension, while keeping the intensity high, helped him really shed fat and build muscle. Of course, the first 120 days of training had built a great foundation of proper technique and cardio health, so we were able to cover more ground than usual in these last couple months. To wrap things up, we provided him with ongoing exercise thoughts and plans, as well as one of our trademark graduation polos.
To say we were thrilled with these results would be an understatement! As trainers, we view our primary mission to be delivering measurable results for our clients. While we have an incredibly high success rate with clients reaching their goals, we usually don't get this much footage! We were fortunate that our client had started recording his recovery prior to contacting us and allowed us to use all of his footage to create this video. We hope you enjoyed it!
Disclaimer: We Can't take All the Credit
One of the contributors to our progress at this point was our client’s dedication to training on days when we weren’t with him. As I mentioned earlier in this article, our client had the "eye of the tiger", meaning that not only was he working hard, he rarely missed one of the online training sessions we assigned to him during days we weren't training together!
There are many other stories like this one from Mobile Trainers. Unlike most gyms, our trainers are compensated on measurable results, not sales, so we have a very high customer satisfaction rate. If you have fitness goals you’d like to obtain, we’d be very happy to discuss them with you! Please give us a call or schedule a free evaluation session today!
