Stupid....friggin'.....TENDONS!!!

lifted

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Welp, thats it....my friggin tendons are shot now....DAMNIT...

Was doing 130lb. EZ-bar preacher curls and then I get this pain that shot all the way up to my elbow. I got this same damn injury right around this time last year...had to wear ace bandages on both arms for like a month and a half and had to lay off all bicep work for twice as long..

Went and tried to do just regular standing curls with half the weight I was just using and no deal....this really pisses me off...looks like no more bicep growth for the rest of this cycle....FVCK!!!.....can you tell I'm stressed???
 

Stingray

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That Sucks Dude,


Sorry to hear that , I injured my shoulder a back in January :( so I know how frustrating injurys can be.

Good luck
 

csakiges

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Welp, thats it....my friggin tendons are shot now....DAMNIT...

Was doing 130lb. EZ-bar preacher curls and then I get this pain that shot all the way up to my elbow. I got this same damn injury right around this time last year...had to wear ace bandages on both arms for like a month and a half and had to lay off all bicep work for twice as long..

Went and tried to do just regular standing curls with half the weight I was just using and no deal....this really pisses me off...looks like no more bicep growth for the rest of this cycle....FVCK!!!.....can you tell I'm stressed???
HOw does it feel during pull up, pull downs, and BO rows? I think that if you can still do these you will provide enough stimulation. How about hammers or reverse grip?
 

jweave23

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I've done something similar before, sucks man :(

I've found NOT doing EZ preacher curls helps me, apparently there is something restrictive about the preacher bench with an EZ bar that puts a strain on my arms (be it wrist, elbow, seems to be a combination of things.) I can do DB preacher curls if I like, but I just avoid the preacher bench altogether now.
 
lifted

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HOw does it feel during pull up, pull downs, and BO rows? I think that if you can still do these you will provide enough stimulation. How about hammers or reverse grip?

Well, today since last night, I've been wearing a velcro/padded brace on my arm. I notice that when I take it off, it feels a bit better, but when I leave it off for a good amount of time, it starts hurting like crazy again...

Thing is though, I could probably get away with using my arms for other excercises, but still not sure until I actually have pressure on it. Definately won't be able to go really heavy though....and any and all bicep work is out of the question..... :mad:

Hammers and reverses are even worse then regular tyoe curls...cuz of the position it puts my wrists in...

Weave I agree, just have to stick to other excercises from now on...
 

iron addict

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LEAVE IT ALONE UNTIL THERE IS ZERO PAIN. You have no idea how simple it is to turn a short term injury into a long-term problem. It may be a short term setback at the moment, but think about the implications of having to take 6 MONTHS to heal a major bicep tendon problem, and then MAYBE have to deal with limitations for the rest of your training career. Your call, but I know from experience how often this happens with trainees that are in too much of a hurry to get there, that they NEVER get there because they end up sustaining long-term injuries.

Iron Addict
 

MaddCapp

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I know the frustration ...
I think IA's advice is probably right on. I jacked my shoulder up a couple of months ago doing HS military presses. I thought I could just 'work through it', but the thing just isn't getting any better. Decided last week to lay off all the chest and shoulder workouts for a while and let it heal up. I can just feel myself shrinking up. Well - not really. But you know what I mean, I'm sure ....
 
lifted

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Yeah, IA speaks reason.....should I just not work upper body at all that uses my arms in the range of movement? If so, I can just take two weeks off, do cardio and my leg routines, and simply extend my cycle another 2 weeks. I was probably gonna do that anyway... :)
 
lifted

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I know the frustration ...
I think IA's advice is probably right on. I jacked my shoulder up a couple of months ago doing HS military presses. I thought I could just 'work through it', but the thing just isn't getting any better. Decided last week to lay off all the chest and shoulder workouts for a while and let it heal up. I can just feel myself shrinking up. Well - not really. But you know what I mean, I'm sure ....

Hope that you recover soon to bro!! :cool:
 

MaddCapp

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Hope that you recover soon to bro!! :cool:
Just wrote a response and sent it and the page timed out. Hate when that happens. Anyway -
Thanks - same to you.
Just taking a week off has made a difference. No pain in the shoulder unless it's under a load, so it's not too messed up. Figure I've probably gotta take at least a few more weeks off ... :(
 

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Sorry to hear about it Jergo. Your cycle sounded like it was going well. I concur with the rest, better to take time of and fully recover than have a nagging injury or even aggravating it worse. Let me know how it goes.
 
bioman

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Sucks Yes, BUT now's the perfect time to test the purported regenerative abilities of IGF3 long. hmmm

Definitely let it heal up bro. My shoulder is permanently screwed because I tried to stubbornly train through a minor ache and pain. My left teres major is now about 50% worn through and will require an invasive surgery and very lengthy PT/ healing time when it finally goes...remember this is a lifetime pursuit not simply a mad dash to look good in beach wear this year.
 

VanillaGorilla

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I'll have to agree on the EZ curl preachers. I can't do them any more either. Trust me just take a lay off. I injured my shoulder doing incline bp about a year an a half ago. My strength was going up so well on flat bench that I dropped the inclines and trained around it. To make a long story short I did bench the weight I wanted but shortly after that I literally could lift my shoulder up. It took a over a year to recover.
 

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I suffered with tendonitis in my elbows off and on for over 15 years. I asked my doc one day about it and he sent me to a physical therapist. The physical therapist used transdermal cortisone treatment (They also used a machine that sends a small current through the transdermal pad to help it get in there, another method uses sound waves), along with perscribed exercises and stretches. My tendonitis was cured in 1 month, and has caused me little or no pain since!

I would avoid injected cortisone.
 
bioman

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Hmm, electro-transdermal? Where's my jumper cables?
 
lifted

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Sucks Yes, BUT now's the perfect time to test the purported regenerative abilities of IGF3 long. hmmm
Sweet, I'll send you my addy....might as well just buy me two though since we can see if it still works after a month... ;) :D

Thanks for the tips fellas, I'm gonna quit training for at least two weeks and then see where I stand....gonna extend the cycle another 2-3 weeks as well...
 
hypo

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When I used to do preachers I would get this sharp/almost electrical shock feeling pain in my upper arm, not the joint. I don't do them anymore because of that pain, but I was always curious as to what it was. Anyone have any ideas?
 

PC1

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Sorry to hear about the injury. It sucks. You have to leave it alone for awhile.

I think preacher curls can be a very dangerous exercise. Maximal eccentric contraction is the point where many tendon injuries occur, and preachers hit that point the hardest.

I think we're better off going heavier on regular barbell or dumbell curls, and doing preachers afterwards. Lighter weight, slower reps. They're not a power exercise yet a lot of guys seem to approach them that way, until problems start.

I like IA's advice. and when you can start up again, start by doing light weight, very slowly on the negative portion of the movement. It's been demonstrated to help improve tendon strength and recovery from injury.

I like the L3 IGF advice too :)

Best of luck bro.
 

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How do you like your leg development?

You could easily devote this cycle to lower body development. Just go back to lighter weights on your upper body and use the low impact reps to recuperate you arms. All the while your legs will receive all of the benefit of the anabolics.

I would do this,

Day 1 Volume squats 10 sets of 10 @ 60% to start
Day 2 light weight high rep pulls and pushes, Only for recuperation.
Day 3 Volume leg curls 10 sets of 10 @60% to start
Day 4 light weight high rep pulls and pushes, Only for recuperation.
Day 5 20 rep squats or a few sets of heavy squats.
Day 6 light weight high rep pulls and pushes, Only for recuperation.
Day 7 Good morning 3 worksets 6-10 reps Stiff leg deadlift 1-3 worksets 6-10 reps
Day 8 light weight high rep pulls and pushes, Only for recuperation.

Rest as needed. You can take a day of rest on every 5th or 9th day. Or just take one when you need it. the upper body days are like active resting anyway.

This is only my opinion.:)
 
Sir Foxx

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There is a thread over at Anabolic Support concerning a tendon injury and one of the members posted a thread at Forced Rep that is a pretty good read. Here it is:

"This one probably should go in the injury section, but there is very little traffic in that section - and this information is important for everyone...

This past week we had a local Sports Medicine doctor come in and do a presentation to our clinic on Tenodon Injuries - apparently the medical community is changing its view on treatment of these common injuries - and I wanted to share some of the insight I gained.

The following information is from a lecture by Dr. Sami Rifat MD, FACSM and is paraphrased by me:

What is a tendon? A tendon is a structure that attaches a muscle to the bone. It gains its primary strength from collagen fibers that run through it. Think of collagen as the little strings that run through packing tape - that is what they should look like when the tendon is healthy.

The common view of tendon injuries was once that the majority of the time a patient comes in with a tendon problem, it must be a tendonitis. Tendonitis implies that there is an inflammation of the tendon which needs to be decreased, and then the problem will go away. A typical true tendonitis will resolve in 2-4 weeks if it is a new onset, and if it is a longer standing tendonitis it should be better in 4-6 weeks - recovery rate from a "true" tendonitis is 99%. The common tendonitis treatment is anti-inflammatories, rest, and ice. Typically people who have had long term probelm and go in for treatment with this protocol will not respond very well and will become quite frustrated.
Anti-inflammatory treatments have a few problems with them anyway:
-Cortisone injections cause breakdown of collagen fibers and can lead to tendon rupture if performed on a high stress tendon.
-Most over the counter anti-inflammatories take 4-8 weeks of continuous use before they have their anti-inflammatory effect. For example Ibuprofen takes about 6 weeks of taking 600-800 mg 3 times per day. Perscription anti-inflammatories vary a lot also Naprosyn (Naproxyn) takes 8 weeks before it begins to show an anti-inflammatory effect, whereas newer drugs like Celebrex and Bextra take about 8-10 days. This means that for the most part, by the time your meds are actually doing their anti-inflammatory job - your problem should already be gone if it was a true tendonitis. By the 8 week point if the problem is still present - there are generally no longer any inflammatory cells present anyway - which we will see in a minute.

New research has lead medical professionals to realize that in the majority of patients (about 90%)who come in with "tendonitis" the problem is no longer tendonitis, but tendonosis which is a degenerative condition of the tendon.
Tendonosis is characterized by degeneration of the collagen fibers in the tendon (the fibers that provide the tensile strength), tendon weakness, abnormal growth of unhealthy blood vessals through the tendon, and most importantly no inflammatory cells. Basically the nice straight strong fibers of collagen become a tangled mess of strings with little pockets of "jelly" and small weak blood vessals. If you look at pictures of a healthy tendon it will be white and glistening, tendons with tendonosis are dull and brownish. Keep in mind that this is not an inflammatory process, so there is no reason for anti-inflammatories or injections.
Tendonosis is a more difficult problem to heal with only an 80% chance of resolving. Typical tendonosis can take anywhere from 8 weeks to 9 months to resolve depending on how long you have had the problem. There are quite a few treatment options out there right now but the best protocol seems to be: Relative rest, ice, friction massage, and exercise. I will go over each of these steps for you...
-Relative Rest: What this means is do NOT stop using the injured tendon - disuse leads to the tendon losing more strength - tendons need load on them to maintain and gain strength. You should decrease your activity level though, and try to avoid activities that severely irritate the problem.
-ICE: This is one of the most important parts, you need to perform ice massage on the injured area several times per day. Ice massage has a few effects - first it inhibits the production of the chemicals that cause the abnormal blood vessal formation we mentioned earlier, second it slows the nerve conduction so you are less likely to feel the pain, and finally it promotes healing. The best way to do an ice massage is to take a paper or styrofoam cup, fill it with water, and freeze it - then you can peel off enough of the cup to expose the ice while leaving yourself something to hold onto. Rub the ice over the area that is sore with moderate pressure until you go through all of the stages: Cold, burning, aching, and numb. You want the area to be numb and red - this takes 3-5 minutes usually - but be careful not to go too long and give yourself frostbite.
-Friction Massage: This is the "other" most important one... Friction massage is deep tissue massage that is performed across the fibers of the tendon with a firm pressure - it does not feel good, if usually hurts a lot. The reason we do this is to break up the fibers and promote "proper alignment"... some people speculate that it also helps to break up the "jelly" pockets... others believe that it helps to cause some inflammation in the area which "reminds" your body that there is an injury there. Over time the body seems to "ignore" tendonosis and stop attempting to heal it. To perform friction massage - first numb the area with ice massage. Next using your thumb or index finger reinforced with your middle finger and push on the tendon with a firm pressure and move from side to side across the tendon. Do this for 3-5 minutes or until your finger/thumb gets too tired. You may find that it is more sore immediately afterwards, but it will feel better after a little while.
-Exercise: Like I mentioned with "relative rest" exercise is extremely important for proper healing becuase loading actually increases tendon strength. The best rule of thumb for exercising an injured area is this: If it hurts after you do it, but the "new pain" goes away in less than 1 day - you did enough. If it hurts more than 1 day from something you did, then you did too much.

There are also a few things that we do in Physical Therapy that can help speed up the healing process, but keep in mind the process takes a very long time - up to 9 months if you had a long standing problem to begin with - and also keep in mind that there is only an 80% full recovery rate.
There are surgical options out there - things like tendon stripping and debridement of the tendon - but these are much more risky with only 50% of people have the procedures returning to their previous 100% level of function (based on an average of all procedures). U of M is working on a procedure that involves using a 14 gauge needle guided by ultrasound to "scramble" (Dr. Rifat's words) the "Jelly pockets" in the unhealthy tendons - this has had fairly good results and is much less invasive than a surgical procedure, but it is still under investigation.

What do you do if you think you have tendonitis?
- Start icing the area right away - ice massage is the best - and do it several times per day.
- Start taking anti-inflammatories even though they won't have their true effect until after the problem should have resolved. This is because they DO help with the pain through their analgesic action before they help with the inflammation. Best bet would be to go to your doctor and get some Celebrex or Bextra right away.
- Stop doing the exercises that provoke the problem - take a 2 week break, your body could probably use it! The problem should resolve in 2-4 weeks if it is really tendonitis and it is new.
- Start doing friction massage once a day to the area.

What if it doesn't go away in a few weeks?
- Go to the doctor for sure this time - get some x-rays maybe you have a bone spur or maybe you have something more serious going on. Get some meds - Maybe it is still inflamed and the anti-inflammatories will help. Most of all ask your doctor if she/he knows what tendonosis is - chances are they will not - because it is a fairly new concept. If your doctor doesn't know, then ask to be referred to a sports medicine doctor (FACSM). Also ask for a referral to Physical Therapy. When you call the PT clinic be sure to ask how many patients the therapists treat per hour - if it is more than 2, consider a different clinic because you may get handed off to a PTA or an ATC - not that PTAs and ATCs don't provide good care - the ones I work with are great, but in too fast paced of a setting you are likely to not see the PT enough to assess your progress and modify your program.
- Keep doing your ice massage and friction massage.
- Consider taking more time off from working out following the "relative rest" guidelines...

Okay - hopefully that was helpful - feel free to ask any questions..."
 
lifted

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Damn, thanks a lot Fox, that was a very good read bro...

I'm gonna jump on those recommendations right now...

I also have a shitload of Celebrex layin' around too....

One thing though, doesn't Test reduce collagen synthesis?

Thanks everbody else for the tips... ;)
 
Sir Foxx

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I got this from QueenofDamned:

"While injecting test increases protein syntesis by roughly 50 times, depending on dose and time, most bodybuilders forget that it will reduce collagen synthesis by more than 50% -- more like 80%, giving you the collagen synthesis rate of a senior citizen. Since collagen makes up tendons, bros are very prone to injury if they continue to lift very heavy, unless they cycle off T and let their collagen synthesis get back to normal. It's like having the skeletal muscle of a gorilla with the tendons of a very old man.

Winstrol increases collagen synthesis. It will give you bigger tendons. However, your body compensates for this by making them more brittle, weaker, and more prone to injury. I can't tell you how many bros work out anaerobically and become injured while on winstrol. Guys who lift in the 1-5 rep range while on winstrol, to baseball players who sprint all out from a stationary position -- winstrol should be the LAST drug they choose. Most of them like winstrol because they don't get the weight gain from it but it is very detrimental to bros who train for any sport anaerobically. Tendons tear easily on it.

Also, the drugs I mention increase collagen syn while also increasing collagen cross-linking integrity, making for a much stronger tendon.

Winstrol, on the other hand, will dramatically increase collagen syn, but ironically it decreases collagen cross-linking integrity, thus making a much weaker tendon.

You can plan a cycle of AAS which will increase collagen synthesis and skeletal muscle growth at the same time. The key is the drug(s) you choose.

Deca, Equipoise, Anavar, and Primobolan will ALL increase skeletal muscle while at the same time dramatically increase collagen syn and bone mass and density, leaving you with a substantially reduced chance of becoming injured than if you choose to use AAS like sus, cyp, or enth.

While testosterone will increase bone mass and density, even at supra-physiological levels, the result is weaker tendons due to inhibition of collagen syn.

To plan a cycle where the goal is to increase skeletal muscle mass/strength while at the same time increase joint/tendon/ligament strength, enough to keep up with the dramatic increase in skeletal muscle, you must choose drugs like Eq, Deca, Anavar, or Primo as the base of your cycle. Testosterone and its esters can be added to your cycle to keep levels within a 'normal' physiological range (ie, 100-200 mg/wk) but must not go above this. Since drugs like eq, deca, anavar and primo will reduce endogenous, natural levels of test, these levels may be maintained with exogenous test in the 100-200 mg/wk range. Test at this dose will not inhibit collagen syn, but paradoxically, will help increase it. It is when exogenous testosterone is used > 200 mg/wk that collagen syn is inhibited.

Deca @ 3 mg/kg a week(about 270 mg/wk for a 200 lb male) will increase procollagen III levels by 270% by week 2. Procollagen III is a primary indicator used to determine the rate of collagen syn. As you can see, deca is a very good drug at giving you everything you want -- an increase in collagen syn, an increase in skeletal muscle, and increases in bone mass and density. The one thing it does not give you is wood

Primobolan, @ 5 mg/kg, will increase collagen synthesis by roughly 180% -- less than deca and equipoise but still substantial.

Equipoise @ 3 mg/kg will increase procollagen III by approximately 340% -- slightly better than deca.

Oxandrolone has over a hundred studies documenting its effectiveness at treating patients needing rapid increases in collagen syn to enhance healing.

These drugs have longer half-lives than most other AAS, so this should be considered when timing your post cycle clomid use. Here they are:

Deca: 15 days Equipoise: 14 days Primobolan: 10.5 days

Anavar has a half-life of only 8 hours so it should not pose a problem.

GH is probably the most remarkable drug at increasing collagen synthesir. It increases collagen syn in a dose dependant manner -- the more you use, the more you will increase collagen syn. It has also demonstrated this ability in short and long term studies. From what I've read, hGH at 6 iu/day increased the collagen deposition rate by around 250% in damaged collagen structures. This result indicates that the increased biomechanical strength of wounds to collagen structures treated with biosynthetic human growth hormone was produced by an increased deposition of collagen in the collagen structures.

Eq, primo, anavar, and deca are all good -- they increase several biomakers of collagen syn -- ie, type III, II, I, procollagen markers. GH just seems to do so most dramatically.

Use of any of these drugs @ supra-physiological levels with a maintenance dose of test will increase collagen syn while at the same time increase skeletal muscle mass. Skeletal muscle mass gains will not be as dramatic as with large testosterone doses but you have to weigh the risk/reward basis for yourself. Also, these drugs do not satisfy the libido like testosterone, but that is not the point of this thread. It is only to demonstrate that you can increase skeletal muscle and collagen syn at the same time with certain AAS -- the decision is up to you.
 
lifted

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Yet another good one man....thx a lot....and deca, here I come... :)
 

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