Pec Tear...?

Any help here would be much appreciated.

Yesterday I was benching (close-grip, flat) from pins set at my chest, and went for a PR.

I have never torn anything before, but during the negative (I made the PR) my left pec felt very odd. As I say I’ve never torn anything before, but I had a strong feeling that if I didn’t simply dump the weight down, my pec would have come away from the bone in the “tie-in” region (marked on the diagram attached).

It immediately felt very sore, like DOMS but concentrated in an area maybe 1" in diameter.

Today it feels a lot worse, and I’m not sure how to address the issue. It may not be a tear, but it feels different to any other twinge I’ve had in the past.

If any more info is required, let me know. I know I should see a professional about this (and I will if it doesn’t improve within the week), but I was simply wondering if anyone had experienced similar and what the consequences were.

Thanks in advance for any insight.


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same thing happened to me last december i didnt go to the dr because im a student and didnt have ins then, but it hurt for about a week and then the pain dulled. Only hurt when it was really stretched like pull ups, some rows, and dips really hurt. I was still able to lift excluding those said lifts, but it took until march/april to feel fine again without my dr intervention. If I had the money/ins then i would have at least checked with a professional about it.

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Since it was close grip, which is not a primary pec exercise, IMO it is not necessarily going to actually be the pec major. Could be ant. delt or other structure.

The good news: You have free access to a professional. The bad news: He’s up here in Wales.

Can’t see the pic, sorry.

BBB[/quote]

^ I agree i have torn my AC ligament in my shoulder several time and it does cause out pec strain. Depending on the seriousness (being if its a tear or a strain) it can take anywhere from 1 week all to 6 weeks to heal, from your case it doesnt seem to need surgery. What really helped me was a MEAT style approach of healing. If you google MEAT recovery you should find it.

Unless you noticed bleeding into the area which would turn the skin dark or “purple” in a couple of days and you have lost function in that area, I would not think it was necessarily a pec tear. That doesn’t mean it didn’t come close though and a pec strain could still take quite a bit of time to recover from. Has the shape of the muscle changed?

Thanks for the input everyone.

bonerjams98 - did you ever establish that your injury was a tear? I’d hate to spend that long away from horizontal pressing :frowning:

BBB - this thought occurred to me as well. If the pic has come up, I’ve marked where I felt the pain, but as Mr 300 said (thanks for the info btw, I’ll check out MEAT) I guess it could still be a shoulder issue.

PX - No bruising at all, which gave me hope that it might just be a strain. The shape hasn’t changed at all.; I can sort of feel a very small dip in the muscle, but it’s not definite enough for me to be confident that it is really there.

It’s not exactly “painful” just quite uncomfortable. I dropped the weight to 50% of my max and tryed to press it away from the pins, and although I felt as if the muscle could still physically press it up, it was too comfortable and I felt it would be wise to call it a day.

I’m really hoping it’s just a strain… I was getting some very decent gaining momentum going after a few months of maintenance, and this could potentially set me back a long way if it does turn out to be a small tear.

FWIW, overhead pressing movements are painful as well, so that would support the shoulder hypothesis - although the pain is definitely in the area marked on the diagram.

not that i have the experience/training of BBB, but all the times (2) i’ve seen a muscle tear MASSIVE bruising accompanied it.

this is not me in the photo. buddy of mine.

Ouch :confused:

Having read up a bit, there are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree muscle ruptures. 1st degree is essentially a strain, and involves less than 5% of the fibres. 3rd is complete separation, and 2nd is somewhere between.

With the lack of bleeding, I’m guessing I’m a 1st degree. Guess I’ll just rest this fucker and try some light pressing every so often to check up on healing progress.

Hey, at least my back’ll get bigger :wink:

[quote]Dave_ wrote:
Thanks for the input everyone.

bonerjams98 - did you ever establish that your injury was a tear? I’d hate to spend that long away from horizontal pressing :frowning:

I talked to a PT and she believes i may have done something, but outside of that i never went in and got a 100% yes or no about it.

to be honest the only lift that hurt too much to do was pull ups and chins. for instance I still had some pain on flat bb bench i could work through it but i ended up switching to incline and decline since the pain was less.

i felt this exact pain when doing cgbp last year. it subsided after a few days

[quote]Dave_ wrote:
Guess I’ll just rest this fucker and try some light pressing every so often to check up on healing progress. [/quote]

Good plan. I’ve had a pec tear (both sternal and clavicular heads torn from the bone) and surgery/recovery is no fun. Take it easy as many guys with pec tears strained or partially tore the muscle sometime before actually fully tearing it. Unfortunately I had no such warning!

Sounds what I’ve had for the past two months. Started with a mild discomfort on pressing, then I got sharp pains whenever I held the arm out from the body and the pec contracted. Like pickung up a fork.

No horizontal, incline or decline pressing or pulldowns for two months, and now I have no pain, just a slight discomfort when doing DB inclines. Started with 10 pounds and add 4 pounds a session.

I’m confident now that there is a little dip or tear in the muscle, fortunately not very big or deep, but it’s definitely there.

I have upped my fish oils (which AFAIK should not interfere with acute inflammation, but may help matters by reducing any chronic inf) and have started using GHRP-6 again to see if it speeds things up. Even if the latter does not, it can’t hurt :wink:

I’ve been into the gym to test out a few movements.

*Any horizontal pressing is out for now, obviously.
*Overhead pressing kind of hurts too, although not as much. Various raises and upright rows do NOT hurt, however.
*Rows/Pullups etc hurt at full stretch and when at the top of the movement when I retract my scapulae.

I’m going to throw everything I’ve got at this to help speed things up. Any suggestions would be most welcome :smiley:

There’s been some real good info put out here already with everyone above, but I have a couple other thoughts you might want to hear.

Our personal trainer slightly tore his pec about 3 weeks ago. He was benching and told me he ‘felt fabric ripping’ on his pec. He has a slight indent in that same region you put an ‘X’ on. There wasn’t any bruising or anything, and it felt more like a dull pain at first.

We had him pretty much living on ice for the next few days just to be safe, and I used kinesiotape on his pec to inhibit it, and also on the rhomboid on that side to help keep his shoulder back. I wanted to keep the muscle in a semi relaxed position.

We then started rehab based on an article that Mark Rippetoe wrote on muscle tears. Bascially, you stop lifting other body parts, and focus on the injured tissue with very, very light weight for high reps. I think he started with 3 sets of 25. The goal is to force blood into the muscle to get rid of debris, and focus all your efforts on healing.

I’d google for it and read up on it. I can’t speak personally, but he’s doing much better. He can do pushups for reps, which is impressive for 20 or so days.

Good luck Dave, and great job on upping the fish oil, you def know what you’re doing.

[quote]Dave_ wrote:
I’m confident now that there is a little dip or tear in the muscle, fortunately not very big or deep, but it’s definitely there.

I have upped my fish oils (which AFAIK should not interfere with acute inflammation, but may help matters by reducing any chronic inf) and have started using GHRP-6 again to see if it speeds things up. Even if the latter does not, it can’t hurt :wink:

I’ve been into the gym to test out a few movements.

*Any horizontal pressing is out for now, obviously.
*Overhead pressing kind of hurts too, although not as much. Various raises and upright rows do NOT hurt, however.
*Rows/Pullups etc hurt at full stretch and when at the top of the movement when I retract my scapulae.

I’m going to throw everything I’ve got at this to help speed things up. Any suggestions would be most welcome :smiley:

[/quote]
Dave speaking from a been there done that perspective I’d vigorously recommend you find yourself an ART practitioner. You’ll probably get substantial relief after just one session.

Also half the time I have an issue in the pec-delt tie in area it ends up being a biceps issue. However, given your exercise selection and where your diagram is than yes its probably more of a pec-delt issue.

Good Luck Dave injuries suck

Had the exact pain you mentioned, took me about a week and a bit for the pain to go away. Thankfully now its better, and i stay away from movements that cause it to feel the way it did.

Thanks for the input fellas.

I have using GHRP-6 TDS since the tear… unsure if this’ll help or not but it can’t make it worse.

I tried 225 on the bench yesterday, just a single rep to see how things felt. It wasn’t painful as such, but there was a definite pinching sensation telling me to “just be careful”.

Gonna leave it for another few days and try again.

This sucks because my bench was really starting to pick up steam. Lesson learned I suppose.

They have a “sports massage” person at my gym. It’s not ART, but it might be worth a try I suppose until I find a decent ART dude.