Your Opinion on Healing a Torn Muscle

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Hey Christian,

I know you’re not the “injury guy” or “nutrition guy,” but have you had any experience with nursing a torn muscle? I tore my quad slightly yesterday (2nd time in a year) and am very frustrated with it. I felt a small pop and now it hurts.

How have you dealt with that with yourself or with your clients in making a speedy recovery? Or, can you recommend any resources for recovery and/or to find out what the underlying problem could be?

P.s. It was using submaximal weights on the Russian SS, so not a max attempt.

2

All what I know is : high reps which create a pump and fill the muscle and the area with blood are good for healing the muscle and the ligaments etc. :slight_smile:

3

@Bigiron: I’m not CT, but I think you will find this helpful.

#1 Figure out why you tore your muscle. Can you control your pelvis and ribcage? Are your hips misaligned (this is more common than you might think). I’ve had great success finding a very good chiropractor to get wellness adjustments from.

#2 Are you missing mobility anywhere? I really like joint distractions, because when the joint is properly positioned all the surrounding structures function properly, and done correctly they only take about 2 minutes to do. If done properly you can do more in 2 minutes with a joint distraction than months of static stretching. I also really like Eccentric Isometrics to properly program your movement pattern with your nervous system. There was a great article about this recently.

#3 When you start back you want proper positioning on your movement 3 sets of 25 reps (Bill Starr said this years ago, but personally I’ve never seen anything as effective). Listen to your body and never workout until you are properly warmed up. I know you know this, but sometimes it’s good to hear it.

Every time you move, especially with weights you ingrain a movement pattern, make sure yours is good and you start in an ideal position. How good is your squat? Would feel comfortable staking your reputation on a YouTube video properly explaining the squat? In my opinion your form and understanding should be that good.

How do you breathe when working out?

Somewhere along the line something is off, the body can only adapt to what you do to it.

I’d immagine your hips are slightly rotated and one is higher than the other.

I hope this gets you thinking so you can diagnose the true cause.

Injury can make you a better lifter.

Good luck.

4

I had the same thing happen to me when I got back into olympic lifting about a month after my high pull video. Go overzealous with my squat and had a slight tear in the vastus lateralis.

Honestly I applied heat to increase blood flow and didn’t train it for about 10 days. Then I did a lot of VERY slow eccentric / fairly high rep work for it… isolation at first, then eventually partial range squats then full squats. Never had an issue with it since.

5

[quote]sput79 wrote:
@Bigiron: I’m not CT, but I think you will find this helpful.

#1 Figure out why you tore your muscle. Can you control your pelvis and ribcage? Are your hips misaligned (this is more common than you might think). I’ve had great success finding a very good chiropractor to get wellness adjustments from.

#2 Are you missing mobility anywhere? I really like joint distractions, because when the joint is properly positioned all the surrounding structures function properly, and done correctly they only take about 2 minutes to do. If done properly you can do more in 2 minutes with a joint distraction than months of static stretching. I also really like Eccentric Isometrics to properly program your movement pattern with your nervous system. There was a great article about this recently.

#3 When you start back you want proper positioning on your movement 3 sets of 25 reps (Bill Starr said this years ago, but personally I’ve never seen anything as effective). Listen to your body and never workout until you are properly warmed up. I know you know this, but sometimes it’s good to hear it.

Every time you move, especially with weights you ingrain a movement pattern, make sure yours is good and you start in an ideal position. How good is your squat? Would feel comfortable staking your reputation on a YouTube video properly explaining the squat? In my opinion your form and understanding should be that good.

How do you breathe when working out?

Somewhere along the line something is off, the body can only adapt to what you do to it.

I’d immagine your hips are slightly rotated and one is higher than the other.

I hope this gets you thinking so you can diagnose the true cause.

Injury can make you a better lifter.

Good luck.[/quote]

Thanks for the very detailed answer, Sput. I always work on mobility as a warmup, but I’m sure there’s always room for improvement. Unfortunately, I’ve been sitting more at work lately, which I don’t like. Just part of the job. That may have something to do with it.

I’m also very conscious when I’m lifting on trying to have perfect form, but it very well could be that I am not moving properly. I should video my squat. I have had it analyzed by both an Olympic lifting coach and an ex- powerlifter and neither saw any issues. That doesn’t mean that I was squatting perfectly that day!

Once it starts to heal back up, which I’m hoping won’t be too long, I will “go back to the beginning” as they say and really work on my form.

6

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
I had the same thing happen to me when I got back into olympic lifting about a month after my high pull video. Go overzealous with my squat and had a slight tear in the vastus lateralis.

Honestly I applied heat to increase blood flow and didn’t train it for about 10 days. Then I did a lot of VERY slow eccentric / fairly high rep work for it… isolation at first, then eventually partial range squats then full squats. Never had an issue with it since.[/quote]

Thank you very much, Christian. I will do the same treatment/rehab that you did and hopefully I’ll heal quickly. I’m also trying to find someone who does ART and/or Graston to see if there are soft tissue issues (say that 3 times fast!) that need to be addressed. I’m also going to go to my chiropractor as Sput suggested.

I’m stubborn sometimes and maybe I came back too soon from the first injury. I probably need an actual break to heal up my whole body!

7

[quote]BigIron77 wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
I had the same thing happen to me when I got back into olympic lifting about a month after my high pull video. Go overzealous with my squat and had a slight tear in the vastus lateralis.

Honestly I applied heat to increase blood flow and didn’t train it for about 10 days. Then I did a lot of VERY slow eccentric / fairly high rep work for it… isolation at first, then eventually partial range squats then full squats. Never had an issue with it since.[/quote]

Thank you very much, Christian. I will do the same treatment/rehab that you did and hopefully I’ll heal quickly. I’m also trying to find someone who does ART and/or Graston to see if there are soft tissue issues (say that 3 times fast!) that need to be addressed. I’m also going to go to my chiropractor as Sput suggested.

I’m stubborn sometimes and maybe I came back too soon from the first injury. I probably need an actual break to heal up my whole body![/quote]
I knew some docs who had Graston tools. They made their own. They were solid metal hand held tools used to break up adhesions in the muscles. It was very effective, but always left my skin red as shit even when they used lots of lube. I still found it helpful for larger muscle groups that had obvious trigger points.

ART is just the old way of doing trigger point therapy. There are hundreds of names for soft tissue work. Some people use acupuncture needles. Do whatever feels best for you.