I had an incident on the pec-deck in January that damn near took me out, the doc said I had a slight tear of the ACL in my left shoulder. Back when it happened, I couldnt wash my a$$ without tears coming to my eyes, hiking up my pants caused similar pain. I cpouldnt bench 100 lbs without feeling like it was 500!! I was in a sling for 2 weeks, the pain just about disappeared. Came back pretty quick when I started lifting again, but still the weak stregnth, not as bad but still there. I chalked it up to weightlifting at 40 and trying to keep up with the 20 & 30 year olds. One thing that helped a lot was doing r-cuff exercises one a week. I stared with 5 lb weights arm @ 90 degrees, move the weight from belly out to as far as I can go. THEN, while watching a Padres game I saw the relief pichers working their r-cuffs in preperation for the game. They were holding upper arm 90 degrees to the body and forearms 90 degrees to that, moved it in a motion as if throwing a ball, also holding the arm out straight at their sides and moving the elbow from pointing at the floor to pointing toward the rear. I started doing all 3 with a 5lb weight before working sholders and the pain has almost gone away. I still get a twinge on both barbell & dumbell chest presses but no more weakness which was the problem that scared me the most. It took almost 10 months but I'm back to where I was before I injured myself. Hope that helps - BV
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