One day in my 20s I was stressed and I stupidly tried reverse dumbbell flyes too fast and with too much weight. Something went deeply wrong, more or less under my right scapula, and I completely quitted lifting weights.
Now I am 40 and back to the gym. I try to do exercises that involve a lot of muscles simultaneously, i.e. squat, bench press and so on. But I cannot do Deadlift without feeling pain. Yes, I have gone to a doctor and he tells about applying warm and massages and so on, but there is something more than pain there. I feel like somehow my scapula is weakly fixed and I am afraid I could damage my back again.
So my idea is changing Deadlift by a collection of exercises that work the same muscles separately, so that I can address the ones that cause discomfort differently, perhaps by going for many low-weight repetitions until gradually reinforcing the zone.
I imagine that two of them are: reverse dumbbell fly, and machine back extension. Any other suggestions?
Later Edit, months before
The pain doing Deadlifts went away after reading in SS how to do Deadlifts with proper form and start with very light weights. It was merely caused by trying to lift with not-retracted shoulder blades and rounded back (thanks God I stopped soon). Form does matter. I think everybody should be forced to read some standard basic document before entering any gym, alerting from the risks of not learning proper form. It really is a problem. Who knows how many guys get severely injured because of a lack of information.