What can I do with rotator cuff injury ?

[GoodnightGrandma]

I do a class with a mix of cardio warm up, squats and lunges, and free weights.
I’m currently suffering with a ? rotator cuff injury. What should I avoid with the weights, or is it just anything that makes it hurt ?

Anything that makes it hurt. Which in practice means everything.

You have my sympathy, but it's a bit of a bugger and best thing would be a couple of weeks rest.

I’ve had two lots of 2 weeks rest and it made no difference, that’s how I realised that it was something more than a pulled muscle.
Is it ok to use a weight in one hand only ? Don’t want to stop doing the class or I’ll never get back into it.

Yes, I think rest. Ice is a bit of a magic cure for me, I'd give that a go. Although I'm afraid when I had a rotator cuff injury it took more than a year, then one day I just realised it didn't hurt anymore.

Might be best in that case to ask the instructor what can safely be done.

One sided weights sounds to me like a bad idea, but lower body work might still be possible (assuming smooth movement, anything even vaguely percussive can hurt - I couldn't even run in the first week or so)

Don't do one-sided weights. Have you seen a physio? When I had a RC injury, I did train for some of it, avoiding anything that was painful, but with guidance on what to avoid, positioning and form, and with specific physio exercises as well. In a class, I would be extra careful as you are moving at speed with a lot going on. For some of it, I just did Pilates (because I could adapt anything that hurt and it is slow and rehab-focussed), lower body, and physio (which was time-consuming and did end up blending into my normal strength training).

Stop lifting weights. See a physio and do the exercises they give you (and be diligent about it).

I used ice and some pretty brutal massage by hand and with a lacrosse ball to make sure that I didn't develop adhesions whilst paying a huge amount of attention to slow, controlled mobilisation exercise like laying flat and moving my arms into different positions/planes of movement.

If I'd had the money, I'd have seen a sports physiotherapist, though. They can tell almost instantly whether it's a simple injury and get you through recovery and preventing a repetition, identify if it's threatening to become frozen shoulder or if it's actually a collarbone or rib injury and see whether you have any posture improvements to make to get you back to your usual activities sooner.

I haven’t had the ultrasound yet, so it’s not actually diagnosed.