Anyone have any experience with this? I self-diagnosed myself with a slight strain from overdoing it (no bruising or swelling, but I'm still icing). Taking some time off from upper body and doing resistance band work. Any other suggestions?

Hi Stephanie,
Sorry to hear about your injury...just curious, were you doing pullups when this happened? I aks because I remember that you posted something about trying to improve on pullups.

I had some pain in the same area you are referring to and I also iced 20 min on, 20 min off for about 2 hrs for a week while I typically laid off from lifting and just did cardio. I attached a tens unit in the area of the pain both in front and rear of my delts and within a month and a half, I was back to normal weights. But not knowing the severity of your pain, rest and ice will not hurt, it will give you time to focus on your meals and supplements.

Listen to your body and if it still persist after approx 2-3 weeks, better go to a physical therapist or your doctor. I also went for massages which help speed up recovery.

Just my $.02

Take Care

Kimo

Thank you for your response Kamaaina! I don't remember a specific moment of pain (which is good and bad) but your right about the pullups. I took everyone's advice and started doing 20-30 pretty much every day (assisted with weight) and since then that's when my anterior shoulder/bicep started giving me trouble. I've been icing 20 min 3-4 times a day, some heat and I actually have a portable tens unit, so I'll add that. I'm not in pain, it's just kind of a nagging ache at certain times. It pops sometimes to, but not painful. Did yours ever pop? I took off this week and plan on next week as an off week to. My diet is clean so that will help. I appreciate the input!!!

Hi Stephanie,
Alot of over head arm pushing involving the use of your biceps can cause this problem if overworked along with heavy deadlifting to name a few. Now I must say that I am by no means a doctor or physical therapist but I too have been a victim of many strains and pains and tendonitis as I am sure alot of people out there are. It is just nice to share experiences with one another, sort of like a home remedy of best practices if you will.

While going through several doctor visits, my doctor once told me to lay off lifting weights...well being a hard core lifter I am sure that many of you may feel the same way but because I am so driven and hard headed, I told the doctor that telling me to stay off the weights is like me telling him to stop practicing medicine...LOL I know it is not the same thing but I hope you got my point.

Ok sorry I went off tangent here, Stephanie, the popping that you feel is the tendon that is strained and in my experience it is that movement that you are doing at the time of the pop is where you need to pay attention to your form and the weight that you are using.

I found some similar physical therapy exercises that my PT shown me while I was recovering along what I explained to you earlier, luckily it was not torn, just strained so I did these similar exercises according to the link below: (if the link does not work here, just copy and paste in your browser address bar)

http://www.livestrong.com/arti...a-torn-bicep-tendon/

Now it is not the end all be all but at least it will help you further diagnose the severity of your injury.

All during my time of recovery, I continued to take 2 scoops of Glutamine Select in the morning and 1 scoop of Glutamine Select before bed so that I did not lose any hard earned lean muscle mass during this period. I dont know if it is good for that but it seemed to help me.

I am not a big fan of pain medication and I refuse to take them. That is just me...my thought process is that pain let's me know how to slow down and redirect my exercises and or stay light on the weight, whereas if I took any pain pills, it would give me a false sense of no injury and cause more injury to the affected area. Again, that is just me...

Be careful, eat clean consistently and stay lifting sister!

I forgot who quoted this but I heard somewhere that you have to endure alot of pain just to look good...funny isnt it?

Take Care!

Kimo

Kamaaina,

Sounds like we have a lot in common, as probably do most people who do heavy lifting. I've been pretty healthy my life, with injuries at least. I recently had hip arthroscopic surgery (Nov, 2010) and thats been my only significant injury. I'm still in recovery from that. Always went by the adage, no pain no gain. I like your analogy about using pain/soreness to gauge when I need to listen to my body and back off occasionally. I've heard this from several people lately...I've just recently gotten into heavy lifting in the past two years. I want, and will be, a natural female bodybuilder. So it's been go go go as hard, heavy and fast as possible and now I'm paying for it. I was like you when your doctor said lay off he weights. I'm not lazy and didn't want to become this way, so I just worked through pain. I definitely got your point.

So you actually ended up in physical therapy for the strain?? I'm actually still in therapy for my hip, although hopefully only for another 2-3 weeks. Thank you for the link!!! Did you ever incorporate resistance bands before hitting the weights again? I love glutamine. I use Xtend and BI Glutamine Select (GREAT when mixed with powerade zero, blue rasberry).

I've got two AMAZING friends helping me with my diet so that is taken care of and very clean!! It's nice to chat with someone who has had a similar experience and compare with. And the quote about enduring pain to look good, a year ago I was living by that, not anymore!!

Steph