Pec Injury Questions - Delt/pec tie-in area

[Ezpeasy]

Hi coach,

Was searching the boards for treatment/rehab on a recent pec injury, and it seems you've had the exact same injury. So, was hoping for your advice and take on it. The details of the injury are below, mostly following the Q&A injury sticky format:

* Is it normal for the bruising/tightness to have spread from delt/pec tie-in (armpit area) to half of my pec? (perhaps not same injury?)
* How should I proceed with treatment/rehab?
* Is starr appropriate? (hoping this is a muscle and not tendon injury)
* Any other general thoughts/advice you may have (I've saved some posts of yours about bench form adjustment: back arch, closer grip)


Details:
- 30, male, fairly experienced lifting (14+ years lifting, first pec injury ever)
- Narrative: Occurred on Wed 8/1; as of post its been ~41 hrs since. Specifically during 1st workset of bench, 5th rep of 5. Possibly not warmed up enough, had larger jumps in warmup sets than usual (due to time constraints). Back was most likely flat, and probably some elbow flare, and in the first 25% coming out of the hole felt a twinge (not quite a pop) in what I first believed the coracobrachialis (delt/pec tie in) area. Could not complete rep (used safety rack), and stopped workout as pain and pain from doing full ROM set in almost immediately.
- Chief Complaint: originally pain only in the delt/pec tie-in (near armpit), however since then pain/bruising/tightness spread to pec, now covering about half the distance to sternum. pain still remains near armpit, though slightly less compared to pec.
- Pain: 5/10 to touch (bruising but no discoloration of skin), 3/10 when doing ROM, just feels really tight.
- Oddly, the pain/tightness is slightly higher when doing overhead pressing movement as opposed to benching movement
- Treatment thus far: Icing 15m on 15-60m off, 800mg ibuprofen/day

Extremely appreciate your time in reading all this.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Keep icing, up the ibuprofen to 3200/mg per day, start Starr rehab with VERY light bar.

[Ezpeasy]

thanks coach, appreciate the response. will start starr in a day or two (so, 3-4 days after injury). also, good thing you mentioned a very light bar, 45# sounds horrible right about now..!