Slap Tear

[Arthur Sheldon]

Recently diagnosed with a SLAP tear in left shoulder. Big time bummer as significant progress was being seen with fran times and press, snatch, and cleans. I'm 42 and am deciding on surgery. Anyone out there been through this? Whats the recovery time - I've been crossfitting for 2+ years and want to get back to the overhead stuff as quickly as I can.

[Eric Montgomery]

Any idea what caused it? Were you doing lots of kipping pullups or kipping muscleups?

[Paul Richards]

Originally Posted by Arthur Sheldon

Recently diagnosed with a SLAP tear in left shoulder. Big time bummer as significant progress was being seen with fran times and press, snatch, and cleans. I'm 42 and am deciding on surgery. Anyone out there been through this? Whats the recovery time - I've been crossfitting for 2+ years and want to get back to the overhead stuff as quickly as I can.

There are quite a few posts in this forum about SLAP tears and associated experiences, including a fair number of folks going through recovery right now. Just search for "SLAP"

In your case I woud prioritize on what needs doing now. Perhaps in this order:

1. Stop doing any activity that causes pain and may increase injury
2. Find the best Orthopaedist you can (one with sports injury experience)
3. Work with ortho to determine if surgery is the right option for you
4. Execute the plan as faithfully and patiently as possible
5. Figure out the cause during rehab... You'll probably have a lot of time to do so.

My research showed typical rehab times from surgical repair to unrestricted return to overhead activity to be in the ballpark of 6 months. Nothing "quick" about it.

Good luck, check the other postings, and let us know how things work out.

-Paul

[Darla Powell]

God! There's a new post on shoulders here just about every day. I just had surgery but no anchors. It depends on the severity. My recovery should be 6 weeks. If you get sutures /anchors about 6 months. I got lucky. I wonder how many effed up shoulders it will take before CF reevaluates some of its programming?

[Matt Payne]

Originally Posted by Darla Powell

God! There's a new post on shoulders here just about every day. I just had surgery but no anchors. It depends on the severity. My recovery should be 6 weeks. If you get sutures /anchors about 6 months. I got lucky. I wonder how many effed up shoulders it will take before CF reevaluates some of its programming?

Or people can take responsibility for their own health and not blame the programming.

[Darla Powell]

Originally Posted by Matt Payne

Or people can take responsibility for their own health and not blame the programming.

Yeah ok. You say that while we sit and watch the daily slap threads.

[Bryan McWilliams]

Agreed Darla

I haven't posted in some time; but the arrogance of the "stop blaming the programming" comment is just too much.

There are way too many SLAP tears happening...and many (most?) correlate to high rep kipping; and they are happening to FIT people, like Darla and the OP.

People read the journal, "what is crossfit" etc. There is a high degree of expertise claimed therein; and yes, some great results. So why would one question the 'experts'?

Homo sapiens is not a brachiator. We left that behind when we climbed down from the trees. And look at the species that still bracuiate.and look at their physiology .they do it in a purely 'functional' way... to get from one place to another. They sure don't do it for time.

I quit kipping years ago, after a shoulder scare..Won't do it again.

Someone at HQ needs to look at the prevalence of this injury, and compare it to similar populations. If it's no higher than other groups, fine...if it IS higher then CF owes it to the 'community' to adjust.

And FWIW this athlete finds it much more satisfying ( and from experience strength and mass building ) to do ladders of strict pullups..did 5 sets of 5 rung ladders mixed with KB C&P y'day. 75 dead hangs.

[Darla Powell]

Originally Posted by Bryan McWilliams

Agreed Darla

I haven't posted in some time; but the arrogance of the "stop blaming the programming" comment is just too much.

There are way too many SLAP tears happening...and many (most?) correlate to high rep kipping; and they are happening to FIT people, like Darla and the OP.

People read the journal, "what is crossfit" etc. There is a high degree of expertise claimed therein; and yes, some great results. So why would one question the 'experts'?

Homo sapiens is not a brachiator. We left that behind when we climbed down from the trees. And look at the species that still bracuiate.and look at their physiology .they do it in a purely 'functional' way... to get from one place to another. They sure don't do it for time.

I quit kipping years ago, after a shoulder scare..Won't do it again.

Someone at HQ needs to look at the prevalence of this injury, and compare it to similar populations. If it's no higher than other groups, fine...if it IS higher then CF owes it to the 'community' to adjust.

And FWIW this athlete finds it much more satisfying ( and from experience strength and mass building ) to do ladders of strict pullups..did 5 sets of 5 rung ladders mixed with KB C&P y'day. 75 dead hangs.

Well said.

[Matt Payne]

Originally Posted by Bryan McWilliams

Agreed Darla

I haven't posted in some time; but the arrogance of the "stop blaming the programming" comment is just too much.

There are way too many SLAP tears happening...and many (most?) correlate to high rep kipping; and they are happening to FIT people, like Darla and the OP.

People read the journal, "what is crossfit" etc. There is a high degree of expertise claimed therein; and yes, some great results. So why would one question the 'experts'?

Homo sapiens is not a brachiator. We left that behind when we climbed down from the trees. And look at the species that still bracuiate.and look at their physiology .they do it in a purely 'functional' way... to get from one place to another. They sure don't do it for time.

I quit kipping years ago, after a shoulder scare..Won't do it again.

Someone at HQ needs to look at the prevalence of this injury, and compare it to similar populations. If it's no higher than other groups, fine...if it IS higher then CF owes it to the 'community' to adjust.

And FWIW this athlete finds it much more satisfying ( and from experience strength and mass building ) to do ladders of strict pullups..did 5 sets of 5 rung ladders mixed with KB C&P y'day. 75 dead hangs.

Arrogance? First, we will probably agree to disagree here. You are responsible for your own health and well being I am sure you would agree. Do people just blindly follow their affiliates or mainsites programming and never question it at all like a lemming. Probably. Will any movement overused open up a door for greater incidence of injury? Heck ya. This would be the same for snatches, jerks, GHD sit ups...etc. People have to try and assess their own limits and work within them, learning over time how far they can/should push themselves. I do not support many things HQ does but let's not give up a movement because we see some injuries that we can prove are from this.
So Bryan, factually how many SLAP tears are caused by the kipping pull up or maybe aggravated by it?

[Bryan McWilliams]

People need to understand a few things about the shoulder:

- it's the largest joint in the body
- it has the greatest range of motion
- when it gets eff'd up you are pretty screwed.
- no transplants..take care of the original equipment

No, I haven't had a slap tear, but 20 odd years I ago I did a header (and shoulder) off a motorcycle into a ditch, at 40 MPH.

Busted a chunk off the ball; got a screw and a big scar, this was before arthroscopic surgery. The fractured wrist was merely a distraction. He had to slice through all the muscle in the front to reach the joint. When I started re-hab 6 weeks post op, I could not move it on its own and passive ROM was limited to parallel to the floor.

I was lucky, great surgeon, great PT, youth, motivation, and 800 reps of pulley excercises 5 days a week for 6 weeks...full recovery. According to my surgeon, that outcome was totally unexpected. He'd a been happy with 70% ROM recovery.

I know about shoulder injury; if you like I'll tell you about my ACL reconstruction sometime :P.

When people post queries about injury, could we keep the wise *ss comments out of it? This is no place to stir the pot