Training With Bruised Rib?

Hi all, I’ve never posted over here before, but I’m hoping someone can give me a little help. :slight_smile:

My bf has managed to bruise his ribs by having his lever belt set too tight. He’s been to the dr for x-rays, which were negative, so they told him to just stop lifting for a while.

We’re powerlifters who train together, so I don’t like that idea b/c I’d lose my training partner for a while. More importantly, though, he is going kind of stir-crazy from not being in the gym for almost a week now!

Any thoughts on whether it’s okay to train while this is healing? Obviously he won’t be doing any heavy singles that require a belt, but I’m wondering if he could do some lighter accessory work and prehab stuff, just to keep his strength up and give him something to do. We both go through withdrawl when we’re away from iron for too long, but I don’t want him to prolong the injury or make it worse.

Thanks!
-Jessica

I think I had bruised ribs a while back(couple times actually,but once pretty bad). original injury occured in the leg-press;tried scooting my ass over with my quads pressed tight to my rib-cage…dumb ass noob fuck-up . hurt like hell , but I finished the session . 2 days later I benched . day after that I played some R-ball with my daughter .

next day I could hardly get out of bed . didnt sleep worth a fuck for the next week ; missed three weeks from the gym .

moral of the story…I should have let it heal .

When I had a bruised rib, my doctor told me I could keep on lifting, as long as I could stand the pain. It wouldn’t damage anything.
But if it hurts too much - not only during training but especially after - I would give it up for a while. Like the above poster mentions, the worst thing for me was not being able to sleep well for weeks.

I did the exact same thing about 5 weeks ago. Those lever belts are evil…

I didn’t miss any training sessions with it. Obviously I couldn’t squat, even without a belt. So I just didn’t bother with that and replaced it with Kroc rows and farmers walks (I figured my grip was a bit weak so it was time to get it up). I couldn’t dealift heavy because when I got into the bottom position it was hugely sore. So I rack pulled for heavy 5’s from below my knees without a belt. THen did fat man rows, pulldowns and seated dumbbell powercleans afterwards.

I had to reduce the arch in my bench a bit too because it was putting alot of stress on my rib. He could try incline benching too.

I was actually able to do heavy military presses too which had been a weakpoint for me. I spent 3 weeks getting them up and my bench has been following ever since.

Tell him to find his weakpoints and hammer the hell out of them for the next 3 weeks and take some time off from squatting and full range deadliting and let his rib heal.

After 3 weeks of rack pulls and grip work I came back and hit a 22.5kg deadlift PR so believe me, it’s not the end of the world. You can work around nearly all injuries. Sometimes you jsut need to be creative.

the last time i competed i took about 7 punchs in a row and later in the round 2 roundhouse knees.Went to sleep woke up with 2 softball size bruises hurt like hell to sleep on that side took i week off and started training again.

Maybe the wrong choice it was hard to do ground work and any body shots standing up hurt about 3 times worse i keept lifting and training it took almost 3 weeks before it stopped hurting i don’t know if i made the right choice but thats my what i did…

Hey, thanks guys! I appreciate the input. :slight_smile: He finally got back in the gym yesterday, making sure not to do anything that might aggravate the ribs. So far, so good, although we know it will take a while to heal completely.