Turns out pulling the deadlift caused a slightly serious injury to happen. I’ve had my arm in a sling for the past 7 days, have mobilised and moved it where I could, but it’s been something that I’ve had to be really really careful with. This short blogpost is just to explain what was injured and how I’ve been rehabilitating it in case you’ve any questions.
So, I haven’t been able to move it much, mainly due to the extreme, sharp pain caused by any retraction of the shoulder or tensing of the latissimus dorsi on the left side.
I have been completely unable to work, or lift anything, drive, and frankly I’m lucky it was my left arm because being right handed, I can imagine it would’ve been pretty terrible.
10/11 days on brings us to this – I am able to lift my arm enough so that I can access my lat and get into it with the foam roller. I still can’t lift anything and there’s extreme pain when my lat fires, but it’s improving. I actually had to be helped to get my arm up to be in this position so I could access it with the foam roller. Thanks also to Helen at Kingsland Physio for her rehab expertise. Read on for the full prognosis and rehab updates.
Prognosis –
I sprained my teres minor at it’s origin, causing a tidy but sharp bruise at the lower, rear portion of my scapula.
I also caused a partial tear in my latissimus dorsi, which has been the real problem and limiting factor.
Rehabilitation –
Immediately after the muscle pull I followed the R.I.C.E (Rest, Ice, Elevation, Compression) protocol to reduce inflammation, I was unsure how much of the limited movement was the tear or impingement, and obviously was very worried as I heard a loud tear and pop when the injury happened. It geniunely sounded like half my arm had torn off.
Also immediately started daily contrast showers – hot then cold. I am a big fan of contrast showers and have been using them for over 5 years now. This is simply using a super hot shower on the inflammed / injured site for 30-60 seconds, then switching the water to freezing cold for 30 seconds. Two or three rounds of hot then cold, making sure you finish on hot, is enough.
After around 3 days I started to tense and relax the left fist and rotate my wrist through non painful motion to get blood to the area and try to keep as much activation and movement as possible. Moving an injury through a non pain free range of motion is essential, and in some cases, a little bit of pain once the acute injury has subsided.
More physio trips and a visit to the ultrasound revealed that the rotator cuff muscles were thankfully, all good.
The physio started on the massage and working into the muscles to try and loosen them up.
This photo is of the bruising about 5 days after – no idea if that was the worse bruising or there was more earlier.
I am continuing to massage, contrast shower and care for it as much as possible with the hope of being able to lift something (anything) soon. Thank you to everyone for the messages of support and well wishes. Hope you had an amazing Christmas and here’s to 2019!