Upper Abdominal Strain Question

[JackHawke]

Coach,

About one week ago, I was warming up my deadlifts. On my second warmup weight (third warmup set), I had followed the five-step deadlift setup that you teach, as I had done for all my deadlift sets since I began Starting Strength (in early September 2017). As I took my big breath and tightened everything up to pull the weight, I felt a very small pop in my abdominal area, right below my ribcage on my right side (almost even feels right at the bottom of my rib cage). I stopped that set, but then continued to warm up my deadlifts, still feeling the pain. I decided to stop for the day after a couple more warmup sets.

My next training session, my work sets on the squat, press, and power clean were 80% of my previous work weight. Still feeling pain with squats and power cleans, I decided to take the next 2 training sessions off.

There is no bulge, I do not have trouble breathing, and I only feel some pain when I do something that forces the muscles in that area to contract. This and the location of the injury leads me to believe that it is likely not a hernia, but I am certainly not knowledgeable enough nor qualified to officially make that call.

I was wondering if you had any experience and/or advice with respect to this type of injury. More generally, I was also wondering how one would/if one should utilize the Starr Rehab Protocol for abdominal strains - would you simply squat and/or deadlift using the method as described in your article, or does rehabbing abdominal muscles require a different method?

Thank you very much for your time, and for providing this forum.

[Mark Rippetoe]

It is a costal cartilage injury. That's why I moved your post here.

[skid]

From the sounds of it, I recently had this occur to me as well on some 80% triples (475-3). I trained through it not missing a workout. Mine fully healed after a couple weeks.