Hello docs.
I’m 32 years old, and I have pectus excavatum. It’s about 2.5 - 3 cm deep which is not too bad, especially since I’m very far down the road in terms of training. You almost can’t tell it’s there if I’m pumped and flexed, but from the side I look pretty flat. And whenever I flex my abs - usually 1 - 1.5 cm of pectus goes away due to my ribcage being very flexible.
My bench has always been my weakest lift (my max was 295 lbs, when DL is over 510 lbs and squat over 420 lbs).
This year I had to drop out from training due to war starting in my country. I wasn’t training for about 4 months. 2 weeks ago I found a small gym that is open and resumed training with the Bridge 1.0. I like to add supplemental lifts to your program on my own, and when I attempted heavy shrugs - I felt a pretty bad pain in my heart. As if it’s been grated on a cheese grater on every rep. The weight was trivial - 275lbs, while usually I did 365 lbs - 405 lbs with no issues. And then I’ve noticed my heart hurts whenever I wear backpack on my way home from the gym, and if I take the backpack off - the pain goes away.
However I don’t experience any pain or discomfort on any other lift, unless I twist or turn in a weird way. I’ve always had a big strong back, and a perfect posture. Still I feel as if my ribcage collapsed onto my heart due to a couple of months of inactivity.
In any case, I am considering doing the Nuss Procedure. I’ve yet to do the check up, and visit the medical center that specializes on ribcage deformities. We have pretty good surgeons who do this procedure regularly.
I’ve read horror stories about how painful the recovery is, but I am more scared of dropping out of powerlifting and heavy lifting for 3 years. Even though they say that you can return to sports in 3 months - squatting over 200kg at my 82kg is not exactly your usual “sports activity”.
I understand that my case might be too specific for you to give a clear answer (since there are no studies that involve Nuss bars and powerlifters), my question is - would you consider it possible for me to return to my regular powerlifting routine with new PRs, or am I boned, no pun intended, for the next 3 years until the Nuss bar is removed.
Thank you!
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Hi there,
While we are familiar with this procedure in a general sense, we have not directly been involved in the management of such a situation, nor have we (to my knowledge) worked someone back towards powerlifting after this surgery. I suspect that there is some type and amount of lifting that would be fine for you to do, but I am not well-versed enough with this particular surgery and its post-operative management to give specific advice. Sorry about that. If anyone else on the forum has experience with this, feel free to chime in.
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Thank you Austin. While I was waiting for a reply I found one dude on youtube who had this procedure and he said he was able to return to lifting just fine. After 3 months post op period he could return to the gym. He said that some stuff was hard and painful at first, but with proper pain management he was able to work through it carefully, and ended up being able to do everything he did before the surgery within a year.
I guess we’ll see how it goes. I’m familiar with Barbell Medicine approach to pain management, and I’ve used it successfully with some minor injuries I’ve had. This case is quite different, but I guess I’m about as well prepared for this journey as I can.
If you guys are interested in some case study or an update on this recovery I might be able to create a topic on the forums to keep things logged for future reference.
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That’d be great! Interested to see how you do.
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A small update on my case.
After doing the lung/heart checkup I was told that my heart pain is unrelated to my ribcage deformity. Turns out I have a mitral valve prolapse, and I was told not to do heavy lifting by a known heart surgeon in my country. He also said that it might not be a good idea to do the ribcage surgery too, since it will only be a cosmetic thing. He said risk/reward might not be worth it for me. It’s pretty expensive too.
Also the pain on shrugs disappeared 7 weeks back in the gym. So most likely my heart was pumping too much blood on shrugs after 4 months of inactivity, which is why it hurt so bad. And now it adapted back to normal.
I still experience chest discomfort and “heavy heart” when wearing backpack for longer than 30 minutes. I seems that the longer my heart works, the more discomfort I feel. I will consult with the surgeon who performs Nuss procedures in person soon, and make a final decision if I really want to go through with this.
I already checked BBM forum and Austin already mentioned to someone that mitral valve prolapse should not necessarily prevent a person from doing heavy lifting. And since I’ve likely had it from childhood it never really prevented me from powerlifting before. I guess I should be more mindful with stupid stuff like shrugs if I’ve been away from lifting for a long time. But I will continue doing powerlifting, and do the heart ultrasound every year or two, like the heart doctor suggested.