Earlier this year while working out on heavy bag I tore my rotator cuff in my dominant arm. My symptoms presented as a pulled muscle in my shoulder that never went away. Eventually I went to the doctor who diagnosed me and assigned me to physical therapy after I ruled out surgery. This relatively minor injury had some minor but notable effects on my shooting.
My non-dominant arm is not good substitute for shooting due to other injures I suffered years before. This second injury had a lot of impacts on my shooting. With regular home physical therapy the impact today is very low but still there. Initially however it was quite bad and I thought I would share my experiences to TFL's aging population in case they could make use of it.
I have never been recoil sensitive so this was a new experience for me.
Carry -
The first most notable impact was on carry. Due to the inability to reliably get my arm back past the middle of my torso all carry options reverted to the front and strong side. I despise ankle carry as a general rule. I converted to mostly appendix carry as this was the most reliable and easiest method.
When driving I most often open carry on strong side. It was actually a huge issue to bend my arm and cant it far enough to reach back, draw and bring the weapon up when seated. I never measured it but my draw speed likely tripled and the pain was very distracting. This did not go away until after regular PT. Several times this caused me to anticipate when I might need my pistol and then I would draw it and clamp it in my lap between my legs muzzle downward. This allowed easy access.
Carrying a long gun on my shoulder was much less an issue than I thought it might be. Simply spreading and moving the sling was enough to make things feel normal.
Pistol Presentation -
With a torn rotator cuff you are supposed to avoid things like holding weights outward in your extended arm 90 degrees from the body. I already use push out presentation which IMO is the way to go anyway for most tactical situations. The big adjustment was in using my support hand to provide much more support than normal. Essentially my "strong" arm was merely providing the fine skills while my support hand was doing all the lifting. This took a bit of practice.
Pistol Shooting -
Using the support hand to do all the lifting worked and I was able to shoot normally although at somewhat reduced accuracy. Still well enough to qualify but not as well as I would have liked. However after shooting several boxes I was always done for the day and would be sore the next. This is because the pistol recoil drives in to the shoulder socket which is something to avoid.
Rifle Shooting (.22lr-300BO)
My light rifles typically have muzzle brakes and suppressors so they don't have much recoil at all. There were no issues even when shooting all day. This is because the rifle butt distributes the light recoil along the shoulder instead of jolting into the joint.
Larger rifles
AR-10s were notable but fine. Anything manual action without a recoil pad was out, especially the hard recoiling milsurps with their metal butts. My R700P has a recoil pad and was notable but manageable so long as I kept it under a box per session.
Shotguns
Here were some more real issues. Shotguns are some of my least favorite guns in any case. Most of mine are 12 GA. My 11/87 with recoil pad was not too horrible even when shooting slugs. It felt much like a heavy rifle round.
The KSG I was able to work through a box and then shelved it. It felt as though it were ripping my shoulder off. Part of the problem with pump shotguns is that you have to pump them. With the injury my only real option was to hold it against the shoulder and pump it as it was too painful to try and hold it my hands. I did try a variety of positions but that was the only one that worked. The KSG requires a huge amount of force to keep from short stroking it so it was almost like getting a full charge round against the shoulder when pumping it.
My 870 SBS was not nearly as bad. The force required to cycle it is minimal as it is so broken in. I could do this in my hands. It has a pad unlike the KSG and this helped as well. Still I was near developing a flinch by the end of a session.
Accuracy on the long guns was unaffected for the most part. Speed times however massively increased.
My non-dominant arm is not good substitute for shooting due to other injures I suffered years before. This second injury had a lot of impacts on my shooting. With regular home physical therapy the impact today is very low but still there. Initially however it was quite bad and I thought I would share my experiences to TFL's aging population in case they could make use of it.
I have never been recoil sensitive so this was a new experience for me.
Carry -
The first most notable impact was on carry. Due to the inability to reliably get my arm back past the middle of my torso all carry options reverted to the front and strong side. I despise ankle carry as a general rule. I converted to mostly appendix carry as this was the most reliable and easiest method.
When driving I most often open carry on strong side. It was actually a huge issue to bend my arm and cant it far enough to reach back, draw and bring the weapon up when seated. I never measured it but my draw speed likely tripled and the pain was very distracting. This did not go away until after regular PT. Several times this caused me to anticipate when I might need my pistol and then I would draw it and clamp it in my lap between my legs muzzle downward. This allowed easy access.
Carrying a long gun on my shoulder was much less an issue than I thought it might be. Simply spreading and moving the sling was enough to make things feel normal.
Pistol Presentation -
With a torn rotator cuff you are supposed to avoid things like holding weights outward in your extended arm 90 degrees from the body. I already use push out presentation which IMO is the way to go anyway for most tactical situations. The big adjustment was in using my support hand to provide much more support than normal. Essentially my "strong" arm was merely providing the fine skills while my support hand was doing all the lifting. This took a bit of practice.
Pistol Shooting -
Using the support hand to do all the lifting worked and I was able to shoot normally although at somewhat reduced accuracy. Still well enough to qualify but not as well as I would have liked. However after shooting several boxes I was always done for the day and would be sore the next. This is because the pistol recoil drives in to the shoulder socket which is something to avoid.
Rifle Shooting (.22lr-300BO)
My light rifles typically have muzzle brakes and suppressors so they don't have much recoil at all. There were no issues even when shooting all day. This is because the rifle butt distributes the light recoil along the shoulder instead of jolting into the joint.
Larger rifles
AR-10s were notable but fine. Anything manual action without a recoil pad was out, especially the hard recoiling milsurps with their metal butts. My R700P has a recoil pad and was notable but manageable so long as I kept it under a box per session.
Shotguns
Here were some more real issues. Shotguns are some of my least favorite guns in any case. Most of mine are 12 GA. My 11/87 with recoil pad was not too horrible even when shooting slugs. It felt much like a heavy rifle round.
The KSG I was able to work through a box and then shelved it. It felt as though it were ripping my shoulder off. Part of the problem with pump shotguns is that you have to pump them. With the injury my only real option was to hold it against the shoulder and pump it as it was too painful to try and hold it my hands. I did try a variety of positions but that was the only one that worked. The KSG requires a huge amount of force to keep from short stroking it so it was almost like getting a full charge round against the shoulder when pumping it.
My 870 SBS was not nearly as bad. The force required to cycle it is minimal as it is so broken in. I could do this in my hands. It has a pad unlike the KSG and this helped as well. Still I was near developing a flinch by the end of a session.
Accuracy on the long guns was unaffected for the most part. Speed times however massively increased.