Can bodubuilders' arms explode?

[Xerxes]

People are alaways talking bodybuilders' arms exploding, is this literal?
I also heard from my health teacher of this one guy at the gym who was doing bicep curls, and his bicep mass ripped off and slid down his arm.

 

[Karky]

Explode.. not unless you inconspicuously replace their steroids with nitroglycerin

and his bicep mass ripped off and slid down his arm.

Sounds like a proximal tendon rupture (if the biceps seemed to slide down his arm). A distal tendon rupture is more common, then the biceps will go up his arm to his shoulder area. Since muscles are like elastic bands, and they usually have some stretch in them, if one of the tendons rupture, they tend to rebound.

 

[Habib]

sounds painful. It takes some serious genius to accomplish something like that.

 

[dswithers]

I have seen tendons torn, but it was when someone was deadlifting in excess of 600 pounds with an alternating grip (the arm with the hand facing away from you places a lot of stress on the biceps). There is no good reason to do that unless you are a competitive power lifter or just trying to show off!

 

[malkore]

There's also Gregg Valentino, The man whose arms exploded was a documentary in TLC about him.

But he was shooting up synthol into his biceps, got an infection, made it worse...

not exactly an explosion or an injury, but the photos and articles on it are horrible.

Plus the guys arms just looked gross and distorted beyond anything even a hardcore steroid pounding pro bodybuilder could ever achieve.

 

[Goldfish]

One of my teachers last year was a former Olympic weightlifter. One lucky day, he lifted 90kg (not a heavy weight for him) wrong, and bam! The short head of one of his biceps tore off.