Return to biking after shoulder surgery?

I’ve completely torn 2 rotator cuff tendons and I’m now scheduled to have them repaired/reattached in a few weeks.

Is this the end of my offroad biking, will I have to stick to road and mild gravel?

I had a bad crash onto my shoulder late 2019 – broken humerus, dislocation backwards and completely detached rotator cuff. Lots of surgery, nerve assessment and weekly physio for over a year, and now every couple of weeks (privately and done right through COVID etc).  My arm movement is around 75% and it is weak in certain angles, but has minimal impact on riding the mtb and other bikes.

I did completely lose my mojo for technical riding and it hasn’t come back, however at age 58 I am leaning much more to gravel and tamer stuff anyway.

It is achy much of the time, regular swimming front crawl seems to be the best therapy to keep it moving and pain at background levels – I do a couple of 2.5k swim sessions a week, all front crawl.

It takes time to get back to the shoulder being 100%. AC joint decompression took 18 months before it wasn’t painful climbing hills on the road bike out of the saddle. Back on the bike as soon as allowed.

Thanks – I’ll keep my fingers crossed that recovery and physio doesn’t go on for too long.  Need to work out how to stay half fit during

Twelve months ago on the last day of our Alps trip Kevin had a freak accident which resulted in dislocation of his right shoulder, two fractures, all the rotor cuff tendons were ripped off along with severe damage to the deltoid nerve and muscle. He also damaged both of his eyes due to the impact on his landing. That’s the bad news over.

He was in a sling 24/7 for two months after the operation. He wasn’t allowed on his bike till January and along with his Physios sessions and programme they worked together towards his one goal which was to go back to where it happened and ride his bike

The good news is that although he is in constant pain, has limited upper arm movement and has one less rotor cuff tendon we are back in the Alps riding.

He’s not hitting the stuff he was before but his big grin tells me that the pain and hard work he has put in to getting this far has all been worth while.

We are on our second leg of out Alps trip. Verbier has been ticked off his list and today saw us on the trails above Pila

Hang in there. Keep positive and anything is achievable

P.S. I also did mine in Wharncliffe quite a few years ago. Took quite along time to get it sorted but I’m fine now and riding everything I’m capable of

I had a similar injury, supraspinatus & teres minor both tore, painful impingement on the bursa, so had those tears repaired and a decompression of the acromial space to ease the annoyance.

If you’re in a position to do so, get a good physio and rehab PT, stick with the program even when you’re in the gym pulling on thera-bands. 😂

18 months and back to full deployability and fitness, shortly after deployed on an operational tour of Afghanistan, so  absolutely not the end of riding for you chap.

The speed of recovery was primarily down to the Physio and PT being bloody excellent. In terms of maintaining fitness while having bits in recovery, I did a **** load of squats/leg exercises and leg only swimming!

Good luck and hope it all goes smoothly.

This is a resource my clinical team recommended for info: https://www.shoulderdoc.co.uk/

Is this the end of my offroad biking, will I have to stick to road and mild gravel?

A mate had a pretty bad crash a couple of years ago, grade 4 AC joint separation, several broken ribs and concussion. He was in hospital for a couple of weeks and off the bike for about 5 months. 1st ride sfterwards was at the Golfie, he’s also a keen climber and has had no problems doing either since then

Brilliant, some really encouraging stories, thank you all.  I need to take my worry level down a few steps.

I’ve completely torn 2 rotator cuff tendons and I’m now scheduled to have them repaired/reattached in a few weeks.

Is this the end of my offroad biking, will I have to stick to road and mild gravel?

My sympathies.

Incidentally – how did you manage to get to the diagnosis of torn RC? I’ve had issues with one of my shoulders for a year now. Started as a niggle after a few weeks of hard manual labour, then got a bit worse. Then couldn’t lift a kayak on the roof. Then I couldn’t paddle and mountain biking was not really an option. Then I got a frozen shoulder, I guess from the lack of use. A couple of cortisone injections and 6 months  of ‘treatment’ later and slightly better – but a long way from right.

I seem to be stuck behind a very generous and easy to access wall of NHS physios (Scotland) who seem to think it was an overuse or rotor cuff  impingement issue that started it off, but I don’t seem to be able to instigate a scan to double check that’s what it was. They could well be right, or I could be carrying a bigger problem that’s possibly getting worse – maybe permanently.

@convert the shoulder doc said diagnosis of a fully torn off tendon is easy, whereas diagnosis of a partial tear, but still attached is harder because it could be many things.

At the moment with my arm outstretched I can’t hold a full water bottle

Kevin’s shoulder was put back in whilst in Switzerland

Back in the UK he couldn’t move his arm at all. It was just hanging limply.

A visit to the hospital put him in an eight week waiting list for a MRI scan.

He went to see a Physio who had kept our daughter racing EWS after her accidents

Within 24 hours he had an MRI and was booked in for the operation two weeks later. Had to pay for it all but worth it in the long run.

His eyes are been sorted under the NHS

Mine took just over five years for the NHS to finally sort it

you probably know from the physio already but those resistance band exercises are generally the way to go

I had an off at Cwmcarn in February ‘23: dislocated R shoulder that fractured the socket on its way out, rotator cuff totally separated, torn bicep and fractured collar bone.

Big operation to repair it/bolt it all together, nerve checks and lots of (blinking painful) physio and 15 months later I could comfortably ride for more than an hour.

After the op’ my arm was useless. I could barely move it and had no strength in my hand. There were some dark days when I really thought it would never work properly again, but regular physio and doing the recommended exercises at home mean I’m now back to about 90% movement. It probably won’t get any better and I have an almost constant low level ache in the top of my arm but it doesn’t stop me from riding gravel and xc (at 59 I was considering giving up the techy stuff anyway).

Good luck with your recovery, @james-rennie.

Stick with the physio, do the exercises and you will be back mountain biking before too long.

i’ve a lot of degradation / arthritis in both shoulders. Echo comment that swimming helps; I also wear a neoprene shoulder brace for tough mtb rides which helps

EVS SB05 Dual Shoulder Stabiliser Adult