Broken long head biceps tendon

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello BM friends,

To give you some background, I am 48, male, 1.76, 74kg, and have been lifting for 18 months. I was somewhat active before but fairly new to resistance training. I started with a modified SSLP (rows instead of cleans) and had to reduce it to two days a week because my quad tendon got sore from squatting (in hindsight, the soreness was probably more form than frequency related, but I am sure my age and lack of experience did not help). In any case, I persevered, tried to read, correct my form and improve, increased weights very slowly, eventually upgraded to three days, and when I got stuck I started your HLM 2.0 template. I love this new world that I have discovered and what is has done to my body and state of mind so far.

Recently I have been diagnosed a broken long head biceps tendon. Some months ago I had a spell of pain in the left shoulder, but I thought it was due to a change in my golf swing and did not give it importance, rehabbed it with bands and the movements in a video from Alan Thrall (which I still do daily) and the pain eventually receded. I also cannot discard the possibility that it could have been broken for years and I just noticed because of the increased muscle I have now from lifting. In any case, my left shoulder remains a little more “temperamental” than the right when I move it explosively and needs more warming up, but I can do every lift, including 3x11 pull ups, all types of bench and standing press, and have no mobility issues. My doctor, which is a “normal” traumatologist (not sports related), has told me that an operation is not indicated because a long time has passed since the break. But I am not sure he understands that I want to progress as a lifter and the implications of this.

Do you agree? Is this break more of an aesthetic thing, or will it prevent me from lifting heavy?

Also, is there something that I should either be doing or prevent myself from doing? During the GPP arms day, can I do heavy biceps curls? Should I always do pulls instead of chins or are chins ok? On the other hand, are there any exercises that I should do and would help? Should I avoid shoulder dislocations or train until I can do them?

Being in this for the long run, I have a lot of time to build up to manage or improve any exercise, but I do not want to endanger the rest of my training life.

Thank you for your help!

2

Hi,

You describe that you have essentially normal function, so I am not seeing any evidence that this should limit your potential to progress in training. Nor do I think, based on this information alone, that you would experience significant benefit from a surgical intervention. This may have just been an incidental finding on imaging, unrelated to the pain you were previously experiencing.

Finally, I also do not see a reason for specific exercise limitations in your case either. Instead we would recommend standard principles of intelligent programming (as discussed in our injury risk reduction podcast). Namely, that exercises should be loaded in a tolerable range at first and loaded gradually over time in order to facilitate adaptation and reduce injury risk. For example, it sounds like you should be able to do curls (especially since you mention being able to do chin ups), and just load them gradually over time as you adapt. I do not see any point in general trainees doing “shoulder dislocations”.

3

Thank you very much, Austin. This was really helpful.