Do You Lose Muscle After Shoulder Surgery?

Do you lose muscle after shoulder surgery? Yes.

You’re gonna lose some muscle because you’re just not gonna lift with your arm for a couple of months to let whatever we did heal. We start early active motion. People don’t get stiff after surgery.

But you still need to wait a couple of months to strengthen. So, believe it or not, one thing you can do to minimize that is work on strengthening the other arm.

Let’s say you’re having left shoulder surgery. You want to consistently work on the right side because your body craves symmetry. You’ll lose less muscle on this side if this side stays strong. It also keeps your protein intake very high. The higher you keep your protein intake, the less atrophy you’ll have.

Once you get to that, typically around three months, is when we start to strengthen. You’ll bounce back way, way faster.

So yes, you’re gonna lose some muscle and strength, but the majority of our patients who are diligent about working the rest of their body and eating plenty of protein bounce back super fast. And then when they come back to working out with that other side, they can get their strength back and not have the pain they had.