Intercostal Muscle Strain

[Mark Rippetoe]

What do you mean by over-breathing?

It is possible to take a breath so big that it places things out of position to exert the most force to stabilize the spine.

[miaou]

What do you mean by over-breathing?

Coach I would also appreciate to listen to what you have to say on this.

I suffered a very similar thing during squatting yesterday. It is the 10th rib (the last one before the floating ribs) at a point directly above the ASIS. At the bottom position there was a "pop" accompanied by pain.

I've searched and found your answers in several similar threads (healing will take 2-3 weeks tops, use knee wraps to train/sleep if needed) so I am not worried about the injury. I would be interested to learn what may have caused the injury in order to prevent it from happening in the future.

Used no belt, very confident of maintaining proper form. I am taking in an as-deep-as-possible breath prior to each rep.

[Mark Rippetoe]

It is not always possible to determine why some things happen, unfortunately. I got a call today from a friend in Seattle, one of my best staff coaches, who tells me about a distal bicep tendon avulsion that occurred on one of his intermediate trainees doing a squat warmup. And we had a seminar attendee last year avulse his pec/delt insertion on the 5th rep of a sub-max set of 5. These things normally happen to juiced bodybuilders at heavy weights. So, fuck. Sometimes weird shit happens.

[Anoddparadigm]

I have strained my intercostal twice over the last 5 years while wrestling. These things really come out of nowhere- Rippetoe wasn't being sarcastic when he mentioned it happening during coughing fits. It will heal in about 4-6 weeks, but unforunatly you have to let it rest and it is very hard to isolate and rest your ribs. If you take a couple weeks off and add the lifts back one by one when they don't cause strain you'll be back in a month or so.

[GVA-66]

Recently discussed this in E & P. I had a very similar thing happen to me. I initially strained something on my left side, mid-back area doing GHD situps. It didn't really hurt so much as feel overstretched/tweaked. About a week later I was sitting at my computer and sneezed and felt something explode/pop in my back. Hurt like fucking hell. Breathing, rolling over in bed, etc., was a real bitch.

Took a good six weeks for whatever it was to heal. I did take Rips barbell cert though a week after it happened so probably delayed healing.

As a suggestion, you might want to try wrapping your ribs with an ace bandage. It helped me considerably.