trying to understand injury

D

deanloring

0
I over-exercised last July (07). I was 58, had recently gotten into weights. I was bench pressing only 30 lbs but did 300 reps. I got spasms in the left triceps (I believe) , my left arm is extremely sensitive at that spot to abrupt movements, and its been a year with no improvement. I stopped weights except to test myself out periodically with very light weight only to find that spot very much active.

Anyone familiar with this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Well first I would ask. What made you want to do 300 reps? do you mean 30? because I don't think I can bench 30 lbs for 300 times. Anyways, you may have jumped into weights too early. You need to hit the stabilization phase so your C.N.S knows what muscles to recruit and you dont end up injured. To give you a better answer....

Here's how people get injured.

Muscle imbalances (a result of your C.N.S now knowing what muscles to recruit and altered length-tension relationships and so on..) lead to Tissue trauma, tissue trauma leads to inflamation, inflamation leads to muscle spasms, muscle spasms lead to adhesions (adhesions create tiny knots inside the muscle making it much less flexable) adhesions lead to altered neuromuscular controll, altered neuromusu;ar controll leads to muscle imbalances and so on...SO it basically looks like this

Muscle imbalances>Tissue trauma>inflamation>Muscle spasms>Adhesions>altered neuromuscular controll>Muscle imbalances>Tissue trauma>inflamation>........you get the picture.
 
Last edited:
Yes, I meant 300. It was feeling good until the spasm.

What you wrote is informative. Do you have any thoughts as to why it does not heal. No tear, no MRI signal.
 
Yes, it most likely is not healing because the phase you actually entered is called the "cumulative injury cycle" and that is just what is is. It is a cycle. your body is treating this as an injury. If left un attended to these changes can actually become permenant. we need to stop this cycle...

1. Static stretching Hold the stretches for 20-30 seconds. Do this 3 times for each body part you are about to use.

Example. bench press you will be using your triceps, chest, latissimus dorsi, shoulders, (you will also need to stretch the biceps, since thet are the antagonist to the triceps and to reach reciprocal inhibition)

2. Go through the stabilization phase. if you are wanting to tone the chest get on a stability ball and grab some 8-10 lbs and do a routine chest press 12-25 repititions. 2-5 sets is good.

Also, since you probably have formes adhesions inside of the muscle tissue, these adhesions are going to act as road blocks almost when you try and stretch the muscle. So, you will need to loosen these road blocks by using the foam roll on ANY TENDER AREA and holding that area on the foam roll for 6-20 seconds or until the knots are gone it is umcomfortable while using the foam roll but when it is finished you feel much more flexable.

if you want to look up more about the foam roll the excersie is called self-myofascial release.

If you have any more questions feel free to PM me.

Sincerely,
Stephen James
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top