Torn tricep

juiced13 · Dec 10, 2012

hey guys wondering if anyone else has had this problem. I tore mine completly off bone(no stub left or anything). They had to go in and shoe string sew it thru the tendon and drill two holes in my elbow, run the strings thru then screw them in. Doc said i would be back to full strength but it would be 9 months before i could ever do anything. Now it is getting time to start back asn wondering if anyone else had any input on this...

ManoftheWorld · Dec 10, 2012

sounds like best scenario for a tear imo just start from scratch basically on building it and go SLOOOOW... partial tears that the common guy suffers are the worst cuz there is always some issue down the road... definitely dont be shy with peptides/gh and decent dose of anabolics with high volume rehab like training to really get the tendon built back up

BushMan · Dec 10, 2012

Damn dude, sorry to hear that... I've never had a tear, it sounds unbelievably painful.

How would the pain compare to a broken bone?

magnus82 · Dec 10, 2012

Tore my bicep last year and had it repaired. Ortho was a surgeon for several pro teams. Gave me an agressive rehab and was 100% in 4 months. Used 1295wo/dac/ghrp2 4 times a day. Would have certainly ran tb500 if it was not so new at the time. Keep lifting whatever you can hard. There is about a 15% crossover to the untrained side so everything helps.

stacked1 · Dec 10, 2012

juiced13 said:
hey guys wondering if anyone else has had this problem. I tore mine completly off bone(no stub left or anything). They had to go in and shoe string sew it thru the tendon and drill two holes in my elbow, run the strings thru then screw them in. Doc said i would be back to full strength but it would be 9 months before i could ever do anything. Now it is getting time to start back asn wondering if anyone else had any input on this...

I'm sorry to hear that bro, best of luck in the recovery process.

Just curious, what exercise were you doing when you tore it?

muscle96ss · Dec 10, 2012

magnus82 said:
Tore my bicep last year and had it repaired. Ortho was a surgeon for several pro teams. Gave me an agressive rehab and was 100% in 4 months. Used 1295wo/dac/ghrp2 4 times a day. Would have certainly ran tb500 if it was not so new at the time. Keep lifting whatever you can hard. There is about a 15% crossover to the untrained side so everything helps.

Bingo!! I had a complete tricep tear repaired a couple years ago. The day after surgery I was back in the gym working on my good side.

How far post-surgical are you? Your primary focus once you get out of the plaster should be ROM. For me this was the most difficult because I lost some length off one of my heads because of how screwed up the tear was. As a result, the doc could only get me to 90 degrees of flexion on the operating table before he was afraid it was going to come apart. So once we were ready to start pushing I was at less than 90 degrees and wondering how the hell I am ever gonna get to 150 or so again. Overall you are looking at about 6 months before you can really start to return to your pressing exercises like bench and shoulder press. While the elbow may feel strong and good before then, you can't go by feel. The reason being, even though you feel good the tissue is still healing. If you disturb the tissue while its healing it wont be as strong and your chances of re-tearing are going to be higher. Down the road once your rehab is done and your back to normal; if you are still experiencing some tightness/pressure due to excessive scar tissue then getting some ART done will help greatly.

juiced13 · Dec 11, 2012

thanks guys for the input. As for the pain it wasnt that bad actually. I knew something happened when it did but was unsure what at that time.

About 15 min after the tear the pain hit alittle more i guess the adrenaline left my body by then.

As for what i was doing is crazy.. I had just got done doing hammer strength incline with 3plates per side and getting ready to start my workout strong as i was getting close to warmed up. I wanted to warm up few more sets, so i grabbed the 50lb dumbells for some incline bench (yes only 50) as soon as i put the weight up from my hips (bam) it went i had to turn my head to keep dumbell from hitting me in face. As the weight was falling i guess i jerked trying to stop it and thats when i felt it. It felt like a rope pulling apart fiber by fiber. Whats weird is it never bruised up at all. But it did swell big by time i got to docs office.

MUSCLE96

Thnks for your input man bc it does feel good and i think i can do stuff but its still in back of my head what happened an makes me nervous.

Was you able to get back to full strength and how did they attach yours back

muscle96ss · Dec 11, 2012

juiced13 said:
thanks guys for the input. As for the pain it wasnt that bad actually. I knew something happened when it did but was unsure what at that time.

About 15 min after the tear the pain hit alittle more i guess the adrenaline left my body by then.

As for what i was doing is crazy.. I had just got done doing hammer strength incline with 3plates per side and getting ready to start my workout strong as i was getting close to warmed up. I wanted to warm up few more sets, so i grabbed the 50lb dumbells for some incline bench (yes only 50) as soon as i put the weight up from my hips (bam) it went i had to turn my head to keep dumbell from hitting me in face. As the weight was falling i guess i jerked trying to stop it and thats when i felt it. It felt like a rope pulling apart fiber by fiber. Whats weird is it never bruised up at all. But it did swell big by time i got to docs office.

MUSCLE96

Thnks for your input man bc it does feel good and i think i can do stuff but its still in back of my head what happened an makes me nervous.

Was you able to get back to full strength and how did they attach yours back

Wow, I tore mine in a similar manner; lifting a 40lb dumbell for shoulder press(loud pop and somehow reflexively shot the dumbell several feet across the room).

Anyway, mine didn't turn out so great in the end. A few weeks after the surgery I started to notice my bicep looked wierd. I initially thought it was due to atrophy and/or a biceps injury as I had been having some biceps problem before my tricep injury. Anyway, many months into the rehab I noticed that my tricep strength just wasn't progressing like it should and could tell something was wrong. I also started pay more attention to the wierdness of the shape of my bicep and finally realized that there was a flap/strand of muscle over the side of my bicep that was not my bicep. MRI showed that it was actually part of the lateral head of the triceps that was not attatched at the elbow(which explained the weakness). The doc(who does professional sports teams) and his colleagues studied the MRI and determined that there really was no way to surgically re-attach the piece of muscle(you can't sew steak to steak and have it hold was the analogy he used). We don't know whether somehow during the surgery the doc actually missed that piece since it was so far away from the scene and or whether it somehow tore during the rigourous stretching I did to regain ROM. In any event, we just accepted the fact that I would be weak and then had some ART done and got rid of most of the scar tissue and were good to go. Then a couple months later I came home from work and carrying my bag in one hand, I literally walked through the doorway with my other arm; banging the tip of my elbow and breaking a small piece off(but still held in place by tendon). We decided that the surgery to repair that would be pretty extensive and that we would probably have to take down the triceps and redo everything; so we decided that if I could suck up the pain and deal with it that we would hold off on that surgery and see what happens. Well that was about 9 months ago and everything was going well until about 3 weeks when I was on vacation in Hawaii and can tell I did more damage schlepping luggage around. I can't afford to shut down my business and be off work any length of time now so I am hoping I can put off having surgery for another 9 months or so, but I am definitely going to get things fixed when the time is right(and hopefully not be forced to do it before then).

Let me know if you have anymore questions. Don't let my story scare you. As long as you had a good doc you should be fine. My story is not the norm, I am one of those people where no matter what I do things always get fucked up. They always end well, but getting there is always an adventure.

juiced13 · Dec 12, 2012

Damn what a story. Well i dont know what kind of work you do but if its any better for you i was back to work 2 days after my surgery. NOw my arm was in full cast to keep me from moving it but i was back.

Kaladryn · Dec 12, 2012

I tore my biceps off, had it reattached, take the rehab slow. At 6 months it will feel 100%, this is when most people re-injure it, tendons take a full year to get to 100%.

feen · Dec 12, 2012

Damn that sucks bro.. just had surgery on a torn labrum. . Hope u heal fast and well

derb83 · Dec 12, 2012

damnnnn that sounds painful

wizim · Dec 12, 2012

i hope you were at least squatting during recovery! im nursing torn quadriceps right now. its been 9.5 weeks and i just started to be able to squat again. last week a set a new pr squat. 65lbs!! 9.5 weeks ago i was squatting 415lbs lol!

juiced13 · Dec 13, 2012

Yes i took off a few weeks completly then i started hitting legs again. No squats as i was unable to hold bar. but leg press, hack squats were in there.

And yes therpy sucks cock its embarresing lifting 3lbs.

muscle96ss · Dec 13, 2012

juiced13 said:
Yes i took off a few weeks completly then i started hitting legs again. No squats as i was unable to hold bar. but leg press, hack squats were in there.

And yes therpy sucks cock its embarresing lifting 3lbs.

You may not be aware of this but at roughly 4-6 weeks out you can do a lot of stuff with the elbow fixed at 90 degrees. For example the pec dec machine; just go light; but as long as your arm is fixed at 90 in the brace you should be fine. Also side laterals machine and then you can modify your sitting position on the machine and do shoulder flexion.