Sternum pain from dips and ring support position

[Falcon]

Hello, I have my Xtreme Rings for 3 days now, and I was just exploring what I can already do on the rings with my current strenght, everything went well until my sternum started to hurt when I was going up in the jumping muscle ups, or doing negative muscle ups - in the dip part. Today, it started to hurt even in the ring support position. Is this normal for somebody, who never trained on the rings before? My sternum hurts only when I am trying to do dips, or hold in the ring support. I never had a problem to hold support position on PBs, or do negative dips on them.

I'm 16 years old, active freerunner for 1 year and 5 months now, before my attempt to train on the rings I've been doing weight training, basic tumbling (flips, handsprings, roundoffs), basic bodyweight conditioning and HIIT/tabata workouts.

I hope You can help me with my problem. Thank You.

[Alessandro Mainente]

after 1 year of training my sternum hurt sometime...i can't tell if is a particular movements wich causes the pain!!!

[Joshua Naterman]

I have not had this problem myself for many years, so I can not say for sure how often what I am about to suggest is the case.

If your pecs are tight, they will put too much tension on the sternum. By tight, I mean several things. There could be trigger points (actual spots of contracted muscle) or some sort of fibrous adhesion that is physically shortening the muscle by keeping parts of it from stretching. There could also be general hypertonicity, which just means that your body is used to holding the muscles shorter and generating high levels of tension than it should.

By checking your pectoral flexibility and performing some simple active releases you can help yourself relieve most of these symptoms. From what I understand, trigger points are a bit different and can take longer to get rid of, so multiple self therapy sessions will be in order if you find those. They will feel like hard little peas or beans inside the muscle tissue. They can feel like bone but they are not anchored and are not a rib or anything. Just make sure you know approximately where your coracoid process is so that you don't accidentally try and grind that away! It is a large bony protrusion just in front of the shoulder, it's basically right under the visible junction of your anterior deltoid and pectorals. It's under the muscles and will very clearly be much larger than what I described as a trigger point, but hey... it never hurts to be specific right?

Anyhow, there you go! IF that is part of the problem, what I have suggested will dramatically decrease your symptoms and help you heal, so that you can get into the swing of things without building up injuries.

This won't fix problems related to insufficient strength, that still has to be built up.

[Tarun Suri]

Slizz, looking at some google images, the caracoid process is what is most tender and I believe this is where I usually do lacrosse ball massages :?

[Coach Sommer]

... Hello, I have my Xtreme Rings for 3 days now, and I was just exploring what I can already do on the rings with my current strenght, everything went well until my sternum started to hurt when I was going up in the jumping muscle ups, or doing negative muscle ups - in the dip part. Today, it started to hurt even in the ring support ...

Slow down.

Give you body a chance to adapt to the new demands being placed upon it. You are simply being over enthusiastic. The issue is simply that you performed no ring strength training in the past and then did so for three days in a row.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Cole Dano]

Another thing, without knowing your level of strength, jumping muscle ups and negatives are really hard on the sternum at first.

If there is a lot of pain and you are a beginner, i'd suggest backing off, use some support under your feet, or bands to take some of the load off.

Build up doing PB dips, and supports, as well as assisted ring supports.

edit: looks like Coach posted just as i was...

[Coach Sommer]

edit: looks like Coach posted just as i was...

Great minds think alike! 8)

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Joshua Naterman]

Hahaha! There are so many great minds I am almost ashamed to post after them!

It's true, if you just jump into things you are going to develop discomfort in many different places, just like anything else. Build up your time on parallel bar supports before working on dips, and work on dips for a while before messing with the rings at all.

Muscle up stuff really shouldn't start until you have a strong base in full range of motion dips and false grip pull ups. You just jumped in a little over your head, and you should heal fairly quickly. Just try to keep your enthusiasm at the same level as your conditioning! It's no good to get excited and try things without making sure you're ready first. I guess that would be kind of like doing a cat pass over a high wall without knowing how to land OR what is on the other side. You probably wouldn't do that with your free running, right? You'd make sure you knew where drops are and how to roll before you try anything crazy off of them.

As silly as it sounds, making sure you've got the basics down first will keep you from running into any future problems. Parallel or dip bar support for 60s in one set comes first. You need to have locked elbows and pushing down on the bar hard, so that your shoulders and arms lift your body as high as it can go without you arching or anything. It's like the opposite of a shrug.

Once you have accomplished that, which can be practiced every day for one or two sets without much fear of injury once you are feeling better. I would certainly take a few weeks off of any kind of support work as you let everything heal, at least two weeks but preferably three. After all that, work on dips. When you can easily do sets of 10 controlled full range dips on parallel or dip bars, THEN you should be ok with starting ring supports. Until then, you will probably just get that chest pain all over again.

[Falcon]

Thanks You for your advices.

I'll slow down and progress from the basics I can already hold 2 sets of 60s support on PBs (I dont have access to PBs in gym right now, so I am using two chairs instead).

I will wait week or so, and then I'll start with PB dips.

[Guest Valentin]

Hi

What you describe sounds very similar to what i had. It was called Costochondritis (diagnosed by a good decent Physiotherapist). Which was an injury sustained after doing a successful kaboom diamidov drill on the tramp (VERY Unfair). In any case Costochondritis causes chest pain due to inflammation of the cartilage and bones in the chest wall. Pain caused by costochondritis, is aggravated by deep breathing and any other activities that can stretch the inflamed cartilage. If the rib joints are pressed, they feel tender to the touch.

Anyways this is what happened to me...and it sounded very similar to your case. in any case it took a while to go away, after i slowed down with training and gave it recovery time. A LOT of it, because it would go away and come back.

Actually the physio told me to continue training but only in Range of motion that did not aggravate my chest/sternum.

[Falcon]

Valentin:

I think in my case, my pecs are too tight and I'm not used to do pectoral stabilization work, like support holds.

I read on crossfit forum that this is a common problem for newbies, the muscles are pulling costal cartilages away from the sternum and that is causing the pain. I have to build strenght in Dips and supports right now and after some time, this won't be a problem anymore.

I'm taking NSAID (ibuprofen), I think it's healing fast already. I did 6x4 Negative Dips on PBs(chairs) and 5x5s German Hangs today, and I have felt only slight stretch in my sternum, 3 days ago my sternum was killing me when I was trying to dip, and it was getting really uncomfortable in the German Hang.

Overall I think this is just a minor injury, and it should be completely healed in a few weeks. Anyway, if it comes back completely, then I will consult it with my doctor, to see if it really isn't Costochondritis. Thank you for your reply .

[Falcon]

I can hold 15s x 8 sets of ring supports now, and I'm building strenght in full range PB dips, and already can press up into support position on rings, no sternum pain, discomfort, or stretch feeling, it's completely gone. I am in third week of my first steady state cycle right now .

The solution for me was:

NSAID (Ibuprofen)

Letting it heal (1-2 weeks, working other things like levers, l sit, pull ups... generally all exercises that didn't trigger the pain)

Pectoral stretches

PB negative dips

After one or two weeks of this I tried to hold the ring support, I felt a little stretch in my sternum that time, but after a day it was completely gone.

Thank You for Your advices Now I can fully focus on my workouts 8)

[dnj23]

From what I understand, trigger points are a bit different and can take longer to get rid of, so multiple self therapy sessions will be in order if you find those. They will feel like hard little peas or beans inside the muscle tissue. They can feel like bone but they are not anchored and are not a rib or anything. Just make sure you know approximately where your coracoid process is so that you don't accidentally try and grind that away!

I too have had my share with trigger points. Most of it is psychological. Sounds silly but it's true. If you have chronic pain that comes and goes and can't be explained, this is most likely the culprit.