I think I suffered a pec tear

[Wolfe08]

so I warmed up good and did 4 sets...45, 135, 225, 275...315...then it hit...I've only attempted 315 once weeks ago and didn't get it...so today I was feeling good and went for it...first rep clean, I felt a little mico tearing right at the bottom, nothing out of the ordinary, so with my spotter there I decide to go for a second (BIG MISTAKE) about an inch or two from hitting my chest (on the downward) I feel my pec literlly tearing/ripping like never before, I yell and luckily my spotter takes the weight off me and puts it on the low pegs right above my head...I could of sworn my chest would be ripped aprt so I take my shirt of to inspect the damage and there is no visible damage...I ice it for a good 20 minutes...undergoing mild throbbing and somewhat sharp pain in certain position...this happened at 5pm today (it's now 8pm) no visible damage but it still hurts and feels very weak and in certain positions/movement hurts kinda sharp pain but not really "sharp"...
What should i do?
Is this a minor tear of somesort?
How long before I can work chest or anything without hurting myself more...(estimate)...
thanks for any help...

 

[MIJ]

I guess you might have a minor tear but it doesn't sound like the 'minor pec minor tear ' I had years ago.

I did mine on the negative of the 5th rep in a set of heavy dips. I felt the 'rubberbands' tearing in what I thought was my front delt , and thought I tore a rotor cuff or something. Matter of fact, I still refer to this as my 'shoulder injury' , though the doctor said was a tear of the pec minor.

The pain then wasn't real bad but I could not raise my arm more than 10" front or side for about six weeks. I could hold it up if I raised it with my other arm, but not on its own. It humbled me big time , not being able to do even one pushup or overhead press more than a can of dog food. I thought I was done with heavy weights , especially my favorite exercise , dips.

Xrays showed a "normal shoulder" and the doc said, after hearing how I did it, that I had a pain running down into the bicep and couldn't reach behind me to go into my back pocket, that it was a tear of the pec minor. He acted like it was no big deal !!

All he prescribed was light weights ( ha, what choice did I have ?? ) and high reps for that arm and healing would just take time. Instead of high reps as high reps always bored me and I never responded well to them, I trained super slow for shoulder and chest for quite awhile.

That was four years ago , and I'd say that a complete healing to where I was handling weights in that arm that I was previously took three years. I lost no size, etc. ... you'd never know I was injured. Of course this was something that I was really concerned with.

I attribute maintaining the development, despite what I consider a bad injury, to making my gains through years of HIT training. Seems to me when you gain from HIT using compound movements, the gains are permanent and stick no matter what happens to you.

It doesn't sound like yous was anything close to mine. The only lasting damage I may have done was eating too many Ibeprofen , as the first three - four months I'd wake up every night at 3 am with the shoulder throbbing and I was popping those things day and night like M&M's.

Hope you get better in a fraction of the time it took me. Best of luck to your recovery. :cheers:

 

[cabby]

ouch, good luck on the road to recovery

 

[natedogg]

If there's a tear shouldn't there be bruising of some sort? Here's a good read on a pec tear.