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Bicep brachialis distal tendon pain after muscle ups


Pietro Melaci
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Pietro Melaci

Hello guys,

I'm 30 yo and from 2 years and half I started gymnastic/calisthenics excercises.

Long story short: I completed a set of 4x5 muscle ups but after a few minutes I felt on the right elbow some pain in the front/internal part, near the lower bicep. I went to make an ultrasound evaluation and result was "strain 1/2 degree bicep brachialis distal at radio insertion", I stopped training for 1 month then tried to train soft for 1 week doing band-assisted pull ups and push ups. While doing pull ups my right elbow/bicep was still hurting (no problems with push ups) so I stopped after another week of soft training.

Here it comes the bad part... I started to feel big weakness and pain in the brachialis distal tendon, made another ultrasound evaluation and an MRI (I was worried about bicep distal tendon rupture) and the doctor said that looks like the tendon is not broken/cut and seems still inserted in the radial, but "there is a vast area of disomogeneity (alteration of signal) at the insertional and pre-insertional portion of the brachialis tendon at the radial tuberosity". I had elbow pain even to keep the mobile phone on the hand (the bicep felt like fatigued after 10 seconds), so I stopped using the arm for 3 weeks, during these weeks I always had a medium bicep weakness/pain sensation that lowered only today (I'm at 4th week now). Things are getting a little better now, I can do simple arm movements without problems but if I extend the arm, like to grab a thing far from me, or if I lift two bottles of water, I still feel some pain.

The doctor said that the distal tendon may need from 3-6 to 12 months to fully heal and that it is possible that I will feel little weakness/pain sensation during this time. He recommended to avoid pull ups entirely and to instead switch to swimming until the tendon has fully healed. I will also need to do another ultrasound evaluation in a month to see how is the tendon quality/status. I am worried that I may not be able anymore to do any pull ups or gymnastic excercises (I loved to do handstand) and that I may permanently lose arm strength because at least now I still feel it weak.

What kind of recommendations would you suggest me?

Did you had similar experiences? If yes, where you able to train again at bars or rings?

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to share more details as possible.

 

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Alessandro Mainente
On 6/13/2020 at 1:20 PM, Pietro Melaci said:

Hello guys,

I'm 30 yo and from 2 years and half I started gymnastic/calisthenics excercises.

Long story short: I completed a set of 4x5 muscle ups but after a few minutes I felt on the right elbow some pain in the front/internal part, near the lower bicep. I went to make an ultrasound evaluation and result was "strain 1/2 degree bicep brachialis distal at radio insertion", I stopped training for 1 month then tried to train soft for 1 week doing band-assisted pull ups and push ups. While doing pull ups my right elbow/bicep was still hurting (no problems with push ups) so I stopped after another week of soft training.

Here it comes the bad part... I started to feel big weakness and pain in the brachialis distal tendon, made another ultrasound evaluation and an MRI (I was worried about bicep distal tendon rupture) and the doctor said that looks like the tendon is not broken/cut and seems still inserted in the radial, but "there is a vast area of disomogeneity (alteration of signal) at the insertional and pre-insertional portion of the brachialis tendon at the radial tuberosity". I had elbow pain even to keep the mobile phone on the hand (the bicep felt like fatigued after 10 seconds), so I stopped using the arm for 3 weeks, during these weeks I always had a medium bicep weakness/pain sensation that lowered only today (I'm at 4th week now). Things are getting a little better now, I can do simple arm movements without problems but if I extend the arm, like to grab a thing far from me, or if I lift two bottles of water, I still feel some pain.

The doctor said that the distal tendon may need from 3-6 to 12 months to fully heal and that it is possible that I will feel little weakness/pain sensation during this time. He recommended to avoid pull ups entirely and to instead switch to swimming until the tendon has fully healed. I will also need to do another ultrasound evaluation in a month to see how is the tendon quality/status. I am worried that I may not be able anymore to do any pull ups or gymnastic excercises (I loved to do handstand) and that I may permanently lose arm strength because at least now I still feel it weak.

What kind of recommendations would you suggest me?

Did you had similar experiences? If yes, where you able to train again at bars or rings?

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to share more details as possible.

 

Hi Pietro, i'm sorry to hear about your problem but my most precautionary suggestion si having a rehab protocol with a PT if necessary.

Asking for advice online can be potentially worse because no one here has enough information about the injury, the strain was transversal? longitudinal? composed?

if a bad suggestion is given you can make more problems than now. so trust me, don't search for suggestions via web from people who do not know anything about your problem. Also me as a moderator i cannot give you detailed suggestions because i do not have enough information.

What about my experience: 10 years ago before meeting coach Sommer i had a bicep distal tendon tendinosis and it took 6 months to heal completely.

so:

-if after 6-8 months without using the bicep it came back to the normal situation you are fine, it was connective tissue overloading and nothing more;

-if not probably the specialist will require a more detailed NMR exam to assess the situation. when tendon does not heal from local overloading maybe there is more damage than thought at the beginning.

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