Final Shoulder Update

It's been exactly a year and a day since my Bankart repair surgery, so I thought I should write one more update about the experience.

Last week, I had my final physical therapy session with Brianne. Passively (that is, lying on my back with Brianne rotating my shoulder), I have a full 90 degrees of external rotation now. Compared with a couple months ago, the motion is really smooth and easy now, with only very slight stretchiness at the end range. Actively (that is, rotating my shoulder on my own strength), I still have some work to do. I'm not quite strong enough to get to 90 degrees, so Brianne said I should continue to do internal and external exercises with the therabands.

I also have "full range" of motion raising my arm overhead and reaching up behind my back.  The "full range" is less than I can do with my left shoulder, but Brianne tells me that my left shoulder hyperextends, and that the range I'm now achieving with my right shoulder is what normal people should be able to do.

As I wrote in previous posts, I'm back to playing tennis now, although I'm not hitting many serves yet. Groundstrokes and volleys feel good, although one-handed backhand volleys are very weak still. Most of all, I'm encouraged that my arm really feels back to normal now, except for needing to build a little more strength, which I'm sure will happen over time.

Now that I've been through it all, here's my most important tip for anyone who's doing rehab for a Bankart repair surgery:

Good posture is important when doing exercises. Everyone wants to get to their range-of-motion goal as quickly as possible, and the body is very good at finding ways to "cheat" so it seems like you're getting the range. Try to start in a relaxed natural position, and be careful that all the motion is coming from rotating your rotator cuff. Nothing else should move (e.g. your shoulder blade or back). Basically, your whole body should stay very quiet. Learning to "embrace the pain" instead of avoiding the pain (e.g. using other muscles to compensate) is key to doing the exercises correctly.

The other important point, obviously, is to do the exercises regularly, which I was never very good at!