Thanks Benny. I bet you’re right. My wife’s a primary care doc, but sporty stuff isn’t her strongest suit.
Question: do you think there’s much risk in pushing it, in terms of a further tear or longer recovery? I don’t mean pushing it like crazy, but just trying to work through it as long as there isn’t pain. I sort of freak as soon as I feel the pull bc there was so much pain when it first happened? I don’t feel any residual pain from last night and was able to do a 3 mile walk after training without issue.
Thanks mate.
I hate giving injury advice out of fear I'm wrong and it may do you more harm than good!! I'll share my experience with tears:
When the fascia tears there is a sharp burning pain but very little, if any, bruising. There is no dysfunction (ie neural inhibition) but using that limb/system is painful afterwards, and it's a sharp 'papercut' kind of pain that is not really linearly scaled (does that make sense?). If it's a big tear then you may feel it stretching or using other muscles along the kinetic chain. If you nurse it too much it heals too tight and the resulting scar tissue can inhibit awareness awareness in that region.
When a muscle tears there is usually a popping noise, a lot of inflammation, and immediate inhibition (this is my experience). The next day there usually significant bruising and inflammation which diminishes over the next week. The muscle will be difficult to activate and the kinetic chain will be altered as you subconsciously compensate. Once healed, the muscle is a different shape (I've torn my left quad, left biceps, and pretty badly torn upper and lower traps and they are all dented) unless you have surgery.
You can definitely work through a fascia tear, and you should, to ensure it heals in the right shape. Use low weight, high volume, short rest interval, slow rep speed protocols to get a good pump without having to rely too much on the stability and support the fascia provides during maximal effort and explosive movement. Taping can alleviate a lot of pain and discomfort from fascia tear.
If its a muscle tear, it needs rest for one week then isolation m9vements with intensity that gently pushes into the pain. If you get the right balance, you should find fast progression with minimal inflammation. If you push too hard with a muscle tear you will get too much inflammation, direct inhibition and increasing pain (ie you will find more pain at lower weight the next day).