Six months ago, Alex wasn’t sure he’d ever swing overhead again without pain. Today, you can find him on the padel and tennis courts up to twice a day, seven days a week. This is what shoulder surgery recovery and a sport-focused return-to-play plan looked like for him, and what it might look like for you.
The Injury: When Padel Stopped Being an Option
There wasn’t one big moment where Alex’s shoulder gave out. It was years of wear and tear catching up with him: hundreds of tennis matches, plus a newer obsession with padel that only added to the load. He was working out seven days a week and slowly learned to work around the pain: modifying his workouts, calling it quits early in games, and icing his shoulder after almost every session.
Eventually, the workarounds stopped being enough. Alex had surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff (the group of muscles that holds your shoulder joint together and lets you lift your arm), reattach a torn bicep tendon, and clean up damage in his labrum (the cartilage ring that helps keep the shoulder joint stable).
Surgery meant Alex had to stop training completely, a hard shift for someone that active. The doubts crept in fast: Would his shoulder ever feel normal again? Could he even work out the way he used to? Would he wince every time he tried to hit an overhead shot? For a lot of people facing shoulder surgery, that mental hurdle is just as real as the physical one.
Why “Just Do PT” Wasn’t the Plan
At Alex’s very first visit, he made one thing clear: getting back to padel and tennis wasn’t a nice-to-have, it was the goal. A generic post-surgical protocol wasn’t going to cut it for someone with that specific of a target to hit.
So instead of following a one-size-fits-all rehab timeline, we built Alex a sport-specific return-to-play plan from day one. We used his surgeon’s post-surgical protocol as the foundation, but layered in objective testing and sport-specific benchmarks along the way, so every decision about progressing his rehab was based on how his shoulder was actually performing, not just how many weeks had passed.
Phase 1: Protecting the Repair
The first few weeks after surgery set the tone for everything that came after. Our top priority was protecting the repair itself, which meant strict limits on shoulder movement and, at first, not using the arm at all.
Understandably, people hear “don’t move your shoulder” and assume physical therapy has nothing to offer yet. That’s not the case. During this phase we focused on everything around the shoulder that we could safely work on: motion in the shoulder blade and neck, grip and wrist strength, and light elbow exercises. Keeping these areas strong and mobile while the surgical site healed meant Alex didn’t lose all his progress. He walked into Phase 2 with momentum instead of starting from zero.
Phase 2: Rebuilding the Foundation
Over the following couple of months, we gradually restored Alex’s shoulder range of motion and started rebuilding strength in the basic movement patterns everything else depends on. That meant slowly getting him comfortable putting weight through the shoulder again, and building strength in pulling and pressing motions.
We also worked on building his tolerance for overhead positions (arm raised above shoulder height) a little at a time. This phase isn’t the exciting part of recovery, but it’s the part that makes everything after it possible. You can’t safely swing a racquet overhead if your shoulder can’t yet tolerate the position at rest.
Phase 3: Getting Back to the Sport
This is where rehab stopped looking like traditional physical therapy and started looking more like sports training. Understanding what padel and tennis actually demand from the shoulder (fast overhead motions, quick direction changes, repeated swings) shaped everything we did here.
Before reintroducing any sport-specific movement, we checked a few boxes first:
- Was his range of motion symmetrical, side to side?
- Did he have at least 75% of his strength back in key shoulder muscles, compared to his other side?
- Could his shoulder tolerate movement at speed, not just slow and controlled?
Once Alex cleared those benchmarks, we built a return-to-sport progression specific to his case. We started with swings kept below chest height and gradually increased the intensity from there. From that point, we reintroduced overhead swings step by step, while increasing his exposure to sport-specific positions during his PT sessions, so his shoulder was ready for the court, not just for the clinic.
Back on the Court
Anyone who’s gone through a serious injury knows the recovery is as much mental as it is physical. Throughout this process, Alex questioned whether he’d get back to the things he loved: padel, tennis, golf, lifting weights. He’s said his commitment to physical therapy made all the difference in getting him back to where he wanted to be: on the court, playing the sports he loves, feeling better than he has in years.
What This Means If You’re Facing the Same Thing
If shoulder pain has you modifying your workouts, cutting games short, or wondering whether surgery and recovery mean giving up the sports you love, you don’t have to figure it out alone, and you don’t have to settle for a generic recovery plan. A sport-specific approach to rehab, guided by real benchmarks instead of just a calendar, can make the difference between “cleared to play” and actually feeling ready.
If you’re preparing for shoulder surgery, recovering from one, or just dealing with shoulder pain that won’t go away, reach out to schedule an evaluation. We’ll build a plan around your goals, whatever sport or activity you’re working to get back to.