Minor injury effects on strength

[RzSco]

I have a minor injury in my shoulder / upper arm.

It hurts on the first rep or two to do the following exercises but after that it's fine. Then it hurts afterwards.

1. Chin up
2. Side lateral raise
3. Bicep curl

Questions:

1. What muscle/tendon is probably injured? It's hard to tell.

2. Do these kind of injuries reduce your strength, for example my max reps of chin up would be reduced?

3. As long as it isn't getting worse should I keep training through it?

Sorry, this is a noob question but I've never really cared about injuries before.

 

[SonhoDourado]

Could be a bicep tendon as you're getting pain in several movements that affect that. You have to tread very carefully in that department as tendons dont heal very fast and can rupture if pushed to hard(though its rare).

Best advice is visit your PCP and see what's going on. A ultrasound or MRI can determine what's happening and you can plan a course of action from the results. Advise your PCP that its been 6 weeks plus of pain with no relief otherwise they'll likely tell you to rest and prescribe naproxen.

I've dealt with both golfers and tennis elbow which is an overuse injury to the common flexer tendon that ties in at the elbow. That stems from gripping, pushing,or pulling to much/to long. I've treated it with a good sleeve, reducing the weight, avoiding movements that cause acute pain, and adding a Theraband/Flexbar to my warmup and cool downs.

Dont sleep on this. Had a BJJ teammate that had a distal biceps tear that knocked him out of commission for a few months after surgery. He knew he had a minor tear and kept training hard only to completely tear it a few months later. Tape and sleeves help but they're only bandaids. Hope your on the mend soon!

 

[Djdj97]

I have a minor injury in my shoulder / upper arm.

It hurts on the first rep or two to do the following exercises but after that it's fine. Then it hurts afterwards.

1. Chin up
2. Side lateral raise
3. Bicep curl

Questions:

1. What muscle/tendon is probably injured? It's hard to tell.

2. Do these kind of injuries reduce your strength, for example my max reps of chin up would be reduced?

3. As long as it isn't getting worse should I keep training through it?

Sorry, this is a noob question but I've never really cared about injuries before.

Dont ignore it man you will regret it if you injure yourself worse. Ive had problems with my biceps tendon and pectoral tendons and they never actually get better by pushing trough the pain.

 

[Pineapples4Puss]

I have a minor injury in my shoulder / upper arm.

It hurts on the first rep or two to do the following exercises but after that it's fine. Then it hurts afterwards.

1. Chin up
2. Side lateral raise
3. Bicep curl

Questions:

1. What muscle/tendon is probably injured? It's hard to tell.

2. Do these kind of injuries reduce your strength, for example my max reps of chin up would be reduced?

3. As long as it isn't getting worse should I keep training through it?

Sorry, this is a noob question but I've never really cared about injuries before.

I have the same issue if I press to often. I can do 1-2 barbell presses a week or it flares up.

The fact it hurts during pull-ups, bicep curls and lateral raises makes me want to say it’s more in the arm than shoulder. My shoulder joint gets sore but my bicep on my right also flares up on occasion when my shoulder does.

If it’s a shoulder injury I’d pull way off the gas in training movements that hurt it. I still believe a shoulder injury is by far the worst to come back from.

I wouldn’t say my strength is reduced but the fear of tearing/blowing something out scares me so I do less weight. So yes and no.

As I said above I would not train through it. I’d make adjustments and avoid anything that makes it flare up. That’s what I do. Plenty of things can replace movements.

 

[RzSco]

I guess if it was actually shoulder I'd not be able to overhead press painlessly, which I can.

Tending to think bicep. Lateral raise does actually involve the bicep to keep your arm straight, now that I think about it - it's not a pure shoulder movement.

I'll drop the curls and lateral raises from my routine and hopefully it'll start to recover. Maybe replacing chin ups with pull ups can also help.

 

[Type-IIx]

It sounds like a tendinopathy and not so minor. It's difficult to know what specifically you're describing: I cannot rule out a muscle strain here, but your symptoms do align with tendinopathy frequently.

To be clear "shoulder" and "arm" aren't actually muscles or tendons - they're anatomical parts that are comprised of muscles and have attaching tendons. It'd help to know which particular structure is affected. Any physiotherapist (i.e., sports PT) would determine this within minutes with some testing.

These things can be tricky to train around and tend to only worsen.

If you are a YOLO type that doesn't want to see a sports PT yet, then definitely stop doing activities that provoke pain. For a "long" (in your mind) while: 6 - 12 weeks.

Apply ice if flaring up and contrast with heat. An NSAID short-term to reduce inflammation is good (just don't use these drugs chronically).

I'd get into a good sports physio (PT) if 6 - 12 weeks of true deloading does not help. That is, 8 at least to be smart before you try to lift a gallon of milk in such a manner that might provoke pain. If fine, don't press your luck. Just rebuild volume (sets, then reps) at a moderate weight.

Don't worry about strength/muscle loss: that's what you'll have to actually contend with on the macro- scale if you end up requiring surgery.

 

[GuerillaPete]

I had a similar thing and it only went away after i stoped training for 2-3 weeks.
As you i kept training and could barely do 2-3 chin ups and the shoulder was killing me.
After that i injured my lower back also and took time of training and both got better but even now when i do chin ups ,bench press , chest flys that shoulder is first to give in and it never went away completely so i have work around it .
For me the culprit was incorrect form doing pull ups and chin ups during quarantine on the pull up bars you can mount on the door frame.
Hope yours is not as bad but in my experience resting is the best way to go i know it sucks.

 

[hijoshiki]

Back off until the pain completely stops.

Pain is your warning.

As someone that was completely nuts when I was young pushing past pain and causing chronic injuries that are permanent it's not worth it.

Lifting weights and working out is a lifetime thing, you have plenty of time to do that, but the smart thing is to avoid any exercises that cause pain and when you've given it plenty of time to heal you come back very slowly with light weight to build without re-injury.

Shoulder injuries can be narrowed down with the help of a good doctor, but it's better to just let your body rest and heal first and see what happens instead of running to the doctor all the time. When I was younger I was at my sports medicine doctor every month rehabbing injuries and even back then this would have been through the late 80's and mid 90's they had a zero pain policy and lots of stretching, I was probably spending at least an hour every day stretching which ultimately prevented my injury flareups.

 

[RzSco]

It seems to be getting less painful over time now that I dropped the lat raises and curls. Hopefully I can trust that to continue getting less painful and eventually go away.

Bad news is my body has decided it's not responding to training stimulus again and my chin up reps are going to shit. I was at 16 a month ago and now I've regressed to 14, I've tried taking extra rest days in case it was overtraining and I've tried increasing the sets in case it was under training but nothing is working I'm just getting even more DYEL even though I'm spending 6+ hours a week working out.

Obviously I do other exercises than chin ups but they're my main marker for progress and I'm not progressing.

 

[GuerillaPete]

It seems to be getting less painful over time now that I dropped the lat raises and curls. Hopefully I can trust that to continue getting less painful and eventually go away.

Bad news is my body has decided it's not responding to training stimulus again and my chin up reps are going to shit. I was at 16 a month ago and now I've regressed to 14, I've tried taking extra rest days in case it was overtraining and I've tried increasing the sets in case it was under training but nothing is working I'm just getting even more DYEL even though I'm spending 6+ hours a week working out.

Obviously I do other exercises than chin ups but they're my main marker for progress and I'm not progressing.

I went down to 2 it sucks i know but you will get back up there.Sometimes you need to step back in order to move forward again, give it time dont force it.

 

[barbell001]

It seems to be getting less painful over time now that I dropped the lat raises and curls. Hopefully I can trust that to continue getting less painful and eventually go away.

Bad news is my body has decided it's not responding to training stimulus again and my chin up reps are going to shit. I was at 16 a month ago and now I've regressed to 14, I've tried taking extra rest days in case it was overtraining and I've tried increasing the sets in case it was under training but nothing is working I'm just getting even more DYEL even though I'm spending 6+ hours a week working out.

Obviously I do other exercises than chin ups but they're my main marker for progress and I'm not progressing.

It's either a Rotator cuff issue in the shoulder or top of the bicep where it inserts into the shoulder. I have injured both, however when I slightly tore the bicep it gave no warning and I just felt the typical muscle tear cringy feeling. Personally buddy I would lay off the chin ups as they have always been a nasty exercise I find for the shoulders. Puts them in a very strange and strenuous position and can leave them sore for days. Get into some proper back mass producing exercises such as barbell rows, dumbell rows, T-bar rows etc. These are a much better indicator and builder of strength than endless chins which ultimately can go up or down depending on body weight at the time.

 

[RzSco]

I tried the pain-causing exercises again:

Lateral raise pain is in my tricep, toward the elbow end of it. Only on my left side.
Chin up pain is on the front of my elbow (the side with the artery) on both sides. Tennis elbow?
Curl pain is on the side of my forearm closest to my body but was much less today. I might just be ego-lifting with bad form too.

I think my shoulders are actually OK, none of the pain is that high up.


I don't have any equipment any more except for a pull up bar and adjustable dumbbell, need to work with what I have. Perhaps I should do a warm up set of light curls before the chin ups - although it feels weird to have to warm up for a body weight exercise.

 

[RzSco]

I will inject BPC-157 for two weeks to speed things along. Can't be having downtime at this time of year!

 

[RzSco]

12 reps today down from 14 yesterday and 16 a month ago. What the actual fucking fuck.

Is a bit of forearm tendon pain enough to ruin my strength this bad?

I am literally back two months of progress in a week.

At the same time I've made a 10% increase in pressing and an 11% increase in squatting strength during the same month. But my pulling has gone to shit - it surely has to be some nervous system bullshit limiting my strength on pulling to avoid damage huh?

 

[GuerillaPete]

12 reps today down from 14 yesterday and 16 a month ago. What the actual fucking fuck.

Is a bit of forearm tendon pain enough to ruin my strength this bad?

I am literally back two months of progress in a week.

At the same time I've made a 10% increase in pressing and an 11% increase in squatting strength during the same month. But my pulling has gone to shit - it surely has to be some nervous system bullshit limiting my strength on pulling to avoid damage huh?

Why are you keep doing them? You will hurt your self if you don’t stop…..

 

[Type-IIx]

I will inject BPC-157 for two weeks to speed things along. Can't be having downtime at this time of year!

Some people are constitutionally immune to good advice. Enjoy spending your 40s and later years with chronic pain and training around injuries (or cessation from training altogether) - it'll be fun.

 

[RzSco]

Okay, I'll stop with the chin ups. It really doesn't hurt a lot though.

Can I do them once a week (rn it's daily) just to maintain strength / check if it still hurts or is even that going to prevent me ever recovering?

 

[Type-IIx]

Okay, I'll stop with the chin ups. It really doesn't hurt a lot though.

Can I do them once a week (rn it's daily) just to maintain strength / check if it still hurts or is even that going to prevent me ever recovering?

A short-term decline is a lot better than long-term injury requiring surgery, no? There's a muscle memory phenomenon, your strength will come back quickly (far more rapidly than it took to gain initially) as will size. In fact, if this is due to overuse (very likely), there can be a supercompensation effect (a rebound) that takes weeks to materialize. Months sometimes with connective tissue involvement.

The problem with the BPC-157 is it just masks the injury rather than treating it at its root.

 

[RzSco]

Yea the implications of an injury requiring surgery would be heartbreaking. I'd have to pay the whole thing out of pocket since the NHS would just be like "lol use your other arm".

I'll take the BPC-157 anyway, it's cheap and it should promote faster repair, but I won't do chin ups while I'm taking it in case it masks issues and results in me hurting myself.

That should last about two weeks, and I'll try chin ups again at the end of that period.

Hopefully because I've caught this relatively early before it got *really* painful it can heal relatively quickly.

 

[Anavarlover]

A short-term decline is a lot better than long-term injury requiring surgery, no? There's a muscle memory phenomenon, your strength will come back quickly (far more rapidly than it took to gain initially) as will size. In fact, if this is due to overuse (very likely), there can be a supercompensation effect (a rebound) that takes weeks to materialize. Months sometimes with connective tissue involvement.

The problem with the BPC-157 is it just masks the injury rather than treating it at its root.

I thought Bpc-157 helps heal injury as well?