Probably more than you need to know, but here goes.
Preacher curl. The seat slipped down during a rep. Instead of standing up I tried to just finish out the rep, but was now at an angle that over extended the arm. When I was pulling the weight up from that position, something started to go bad, and it felt like rubber bands snapping in my left forearm.
I did quit after that, but thought I just strained my forearm. Didn’t think about it much and the next few days I was able to get through the other workouts in my split. When back and biceps came around again, I was still good the whole workout. Back exercises and dumbbell curls were no problem. Then I hit a barbell curl, and once I was getting to the 6-8 rep range, it REALLY snapped. Same feeling as before, but worse.
The muscle didn’t retract up into the shoulder like many/most people see with a torn distal bicep, so I diagnosed myself as being okay. The next day was the NU at Illinois game at Soldier Field. I woke up and the inside of my left arm was super bruised. When we got home from the game, I started researching symptoms and got more concerned.
I got into Rush on Monday afternoon, and they were like, “Yeah, you’re having surgery ASAP.” If I waited, they said, the tendon would start to heal detached from the forearm and they would never be able to reattach it. They got me in Wednesday. They told me that there is a sheath through which the tendon runs and while my tendon was snapped, I guess the sheath was still there and is why the muscle hadn’t retracted…..yet.
From a pain and discomfort perspective, maybe the worst part of the whole thing was my nausea from reading about and listening to the description of the injury and the surgery. But the arm was locked in a brace at 90 degrees for a long time, and some long car trips like that did get pretty uncomfortable.
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