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Thread: Proximal biceps tendinopathy. 4 Months of pain

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2020
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    4

    Default Proximal biceps tendinopathy. 4 Months of pain

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    Hello there!

    I've been diagnosed by a doctor with Proximal biceps tendinopathy at my left shoulder. Went through both MRI and MRI arthrogram to exclude other possible major injuries, both studies results came back as inconclusive, showing no injury to any tissue.

    Pain started while bench pressing. My form was awful (arms to wide) and I was increasing weight way to quickly. Recipe for disaster. Started with a minor discomfort right at the long head portion of the biceps. Thought it was nothing serious so I kept training, rookie. Pain increased the next following weeks to a point I couldn't push through it. At some point the pain was felt in any exercise that required external rotation of my shoulder. Pain did not spread to other locations.

    Unfortunately both my doctor and my PT did not explained me (felt that they were uninformed) how or why the pain started. I agree with the diagnosis because the pain it's right here, but I don't know if it's due to an impingement, forwarded shoulder, bad posture, or just because. Both of them told me to rest, ice it and then rehab everyday. Rehab was mostly rotator cuff strengthening without stretching. Even after a month of resting and rehabbing, pain was still there. It was even worse at times while doing the rehab exercises.

    As the panorama was not getting better, my doctor decided to offer me a PRP injection, which I accepted. At the same time I got injected, I decided to start a shoulders/pecs stretching routine, which I didn't try at all before. Pain reduced drastically, especially the "pinching" felling I was getting when I did not move my arm for a good time. I assume this is the result of stretching and not PRP, but who knows.

    I decided to rehab it myself since I was not trusting my doctors. At least I know that I don't have a labrum tear, or any other -more serious- injury, the issue is that I don't know exactly how to proceed.

    I'm currently doing a everyday 15 min stretching routine for my shoulders (pecs, shoulders, internal rotation). I spend most of my day on a computer, so It's possible that I have forward shoulders or bad posture causing to much stress on my LHBT, besides this, is the only thing that reduced my pain to be able to start rehab.
    I'm also strengthening my rotator cuff muscles, especially my external rotation, back muscles and rear delts, since I completely neglected them (the rear delts) at the time of my injury, so I think that's another possibility.
    Finally I've recently added (today) direct work to the long head biceps tendon, by doing 10 reps, 4 sets of 2-4 seconds eccentrics preacher curls, with a medium tension resistance band. No pain while doing them.


    Stretching seems to have been the best decision. Was really painful at first, everything was super tight. Some of the rehab exercises I'm doing, for example, Y face pulls, cause a instant sharp pain at the LHBT. But only during a repetition or so, it's not felt during the whole exercise. It resembles a pinching feeling, like if the tendon it's moving out of its groove, don't know if this is because the tendon it's inflamed or thickened. I actually can make the tendon pop if I do a supinated front delt raise. Causes minor pain. Doesn't happen with the healthy arm.


    I have absolutely no idea if i'm doing way to much or if I'm in the correct path, I'm trying to hit every possible cause but I might be irritating something in the way of doing so. I would appreciate any kind of help on how to continue.

    Sorry if there is any mistake, English it's not my first language.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Valley of the Sun
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    1,487

    Default

    When I had this problem I found the 90 degree curls very helpful:

    Clarification on "90-degree-elbow barbell curls" recommendation

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2020
    Posts
    4

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Culican View Post
    When I had this problem I found the 90 degree curls very helpful:

    Clarification on "90-degree-elbow barbell curls" recommendation
    Thanks for the information!

    Did you add something else to fix it? Dead hang stretches? Press? How many sets of 25 did you do?

    I'm still trying to figure out if my injury is due to impingement causing the bicep tendonitis, or if is it only bicep tendonitis. Both doctors did not knew nor explained it to me.... MRi's did not show impingement or the tendonitis.... not knowing how to proceed it's driving me crazy.

    I'm currently going through a flare up after doing the preacher curls. Tendon seems inflamed and I believe it's impinging right at the top of the shoulder. Hurts to raise the arm.

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