This is amusing. What is your bodyweight?Originally Posted by MitchellDButler
Member
PT hasn't helped the chronic pain in my triceps
I've heard you talk about the superiority of training for treatment over physical therapy, and was wondering if you (or anyone) can help me where months of PT has failed.
I've had a chronic tightness/inflammation in the lateral head of both of my triceps for over a year now. (It may also extend to the other heads, but I feel it most acutely in the lateral head.) It gets tight in training any part of my upper body, and sometimes reaches painful levels. It flares up into pain under heavy bench presses, curls, etc. (It even used to be really bad squatting, but I improved my shoulder mobility and no longer support weight with my triceps.) It also occurs whether I do heavy weight/low reps (2-3) or lighter weight/high reps (8-10).
The pain feels like tightness in that part of my triceps and culminates at the elbow. It starts mild but can reach stabbing levels, and makes it so that I can't even raise my water bottle to drink. The pain can be mitigated somewhat by massaging the lateral head with my hand or on a bar, but continuing to lift heavy makes it unbearable. It subsides within 1-2 hours after I stop training, and I rarely feel the tightness during the day until I go to bed and think about my workout the next morning.
The physical therapist I was seeing for a few months thought it was due to muscle imbalances between my front and back, and had me doing daily work with a light band on my rotator cuffs and rear deltoids. I did face pulls, internal and external rotation, etc. These have helped a bit, but I've been doing them for about 6 months and the problem persists. He also massaged my triceps regularly, but that didn't help much until he did dry needling on them (a delightful form of torture) which seemed to make every thing better for about 3 months. But now it's back.
I think that's pretty much all there is to say about it. It's stunted progress on my presses so I'm very eager to figure this out.
TMPHBITEU
This is amusing. What is your bodyweight?
Starting Strength Coach
I actually can speak to this from experience, since I had a similar problem a few years ago. My pain was primarily in the elbow, with some shoulder as well. Very debilitating...to the point where, like you, I couldn't even do basic movements with the arm like drive a car or lift a glass. The MDs and PTs misdiagnosed it as something in the shoulder or elbow. I had an MRI done (no abnormalities found) and six sessions of those stupid physical therapy exercises (high five for insurance hoop-jumping). Didn't do shit.
In desperation since I had a meet coming up in two and a half months, I then went to see a masseuse who knew what he was doing. He was formerly the team massage therapist for the Cleveland Browns and the Cleveland Cavs, and has a lot of strongman and competitive lifting clients...so he knew a thing or two about how to work out sports injuries. (Had some interesting stories about working on Shaq during his brief stint with the Cavs.) After poking around for a little he figured out that it was actually a severely strained and inflamed tricep and had nothing to do with the shoulder or elbow. I did four one-hour sessions of basically Medieval torture methods* with him, along with using a moist heat pad at least twice a day for 15-20 minutes (the ones that pull moisture from the air and act as damp heat...not the dry heat stuff you can buy for $10 at any pharmacy). Problem was completely gone after about 5 weeks.
So my suggestion is to find someone who actually is knowledgeable about soft tissue injuries and let him/her work you hard. You'll probably have to research for a while to find the right person. In my experience MDs are good at orthopedic stuff but generally aren't very good with soft tissue injuries, and PTs are basically useless for everything (the Petrizzos, Will Morris, and a few others I'm blanking on now excepted). You'll pay a premium for the good ones, but they're at a premium because they're good...kind of like how you'll rarely find a Starting Strength Coach at "market" personal training prices.
* Literally the third most painful experience of my life...the first being a skin grafting operation on my gums and the second being when my teeth were shaped with a drill with no Novocain.
Starting Strength Coach
That's it. Fuck this profession.
Starting Strength Coach
My guess is that about a half bottle of Ibuprofen will clear up your inflamed triceps. Should cost about $6 and take about 4 days. This is sad.
Member
at 5'9" it's 170 lbs and rising after giving up my abdominomania
How did you find that guy? I've thought about this and have found a couple masseuses who include "sports massage" in their services, but I don't know if they would have that kind of specialized knowledge.
TMPHBITEU
Experience has shown that gaining weight makes little bullshit injuries like this go away. Take the ibuprofen, get the ART, stop wasting money on PT, train through it, and gain some weight.
Member
What would you recommend for someone with similar problems who weighs 220 and hasn't seen anything other than very short-term benefit from ART or ibuprofen?
Starting Strength Coach
Understanding that outside of some kind of mechanical dysfunction from injured tissue, shitty form with lifting, or overuse / under-recovery syndromes, most pain you feel is centrally mediated and needs to be trained through.
✓ Member
I think the majority of us on this board train through significant pain. It's hurts less than the pain of not training.
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