Injury? Strain? Who Knows?

So I was working up to some heavy singles last night on floor press and felt a stabbing sensation in my left bicep near the insert when I got up to what was my 3rd heaviest single. It started hurting when I got to 2/3rd of the way down to the floor (lockout didn’t hurt at all) as if someone had just stabbed me in the arm. Any thoughts as to what this might be, how to work around it/rehab it?

I found it to be odd that it happened on floor press since my biceps are working as stabilizing muscles. My biceps are a much stronger point for me than my triceps and never would of thought they’d be a limiting factor.

When the pain came I stopped the workout and called it a day and have decided to switch my ME movement on wed from rev. band deadlift to squats since my over/under grip might place too much strain on that bicep. Anyone ever experienced something like this or have any suggestions?

Go lighter on the excerciae and see where it grabs you. It could easily be a front delt issue and it is running into the bicep. Just go lighter on the dead and maybe use a different grip. You were smart to call it a day, and you have to go with your gut on what you can and cannot do. Taking care of it now means you will be stronger later on.

BB

[quote]LiquidMercury wrote:
So I was working up to some heavy singles last night on floor press and felt a stabbing sensation in my left bicep near the insert when I got up to what was my 3rd heaviest single. It started hurting when I got to 2/3rd of the way down to the floor (lockout didn’t hurt at all) as if someone had just stabbed me in the arm. Any thoughts as to what this might be, how to work around it/rehab it? I found it to be odd that it happened on floor press since my biceps are working as stabilizing muscles. My biceps are a much stronger point for me than my triceps and never would of thought they’d be a limiting factor. When the pain came I stopped the workout and called it a day and have decided to switch my ME movement on wed from rev. band deadlift to squats since my over/under grip might place too much strain on that bicep. Anyone ever experienced something like this or have any suggestions?[/quote]

I get this whenever I squat with a straight bar. I think my problem is shoulder mobility, and as a result my bicep ends up doing a lot of work to hold the bar on to my back. Just recently I’ve tried to stretch my shoulders out before squatting and I haven’t had the problem (yet). Squat days aren’t bad, but the subsequent bench days are brutal.

I know of a lot of others lifters that have this, as well as people on this board … Dave Tate talks about it too:

Thanks for the input guys, I guess I’ll just have to take it slow and hope I can work around it a bit. It never hurts on squats, and I suppose it could be a shoulder issue. Like I said it didn’t happen until I was about 85% of max and didn’t seem to be any type of pop or snap.

Little bit of an update here.

I’ve been trying to work around this injury. Icing it at nights and generally avoiding anything that hurts it. So far I’ve limited the pain to the following:

It only hurts when I go into the lower 2/3rd of my ROM on horizontal pressing movements.
Overhead pressing does not hurt
Direct bicep work does not hurt
Back work does not hurt
Grip work does not hurt

After some rest I tried doing some reverse band presses today to see how it went. Managed to get pinned under 275 (was using the safety pins to hook bands around smart huh? and yes I had already warmed up). Luckily I was able to roll it into my lap and row it up to the j-hooks. With that being said the moment I went into the lower 2/3rds it just started hurting. I obviously didn’t do another set. My question is, is this a bicep issue or a front delt issue? The pain is in my bicep but I’m wondering if it’s coming from a front delt issue. Any more thoughts on this would be appreciated. At this point I’m taking off all upper body work for the next week, maybe more and continuing to ice and rest. I’m just wondering if I’m even icing in the right place or if this is an issue that may indeed be more serious than a basic strain. Again any and all thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the input BBB, glad/sorry to know that I’m not the only one that has had issues like this. It doesn’t really seem to be a shoulder issue though there is some tenderness. I guess all I can do is deload this week and take floor presses out of the rotation.

In otherwords, it’s a mystery. Well the plan right now is to deload this week and not lift at all, follow RICE protocols and possibly even limit upper body work next week as well.