Bicep pain-Help!

[jet107]

I felt a slight pain in my left bicep when doing hammer curls at the end of a long arm workout. Iced it and thought it was no big deal. That was six months ago. The pain is in the front of the bicep and feels like it extends to the tendon attached to my forearm. I have been to the doctor, had MRI's and all that happens is they send me to therapy that does nothing to help. I went to a chiropractor that works with sports injuries and he cant seem to do much either. A friend told me he had the same thing and it was tennis elbow. I'm looking for advise. Let me know what specifics you need to help. Thanks!

[marie]

I am not a doctor... but ergonomist and kinesiologist.

That seems to be an tendonitis inflammation. It's chronic conditions due to overuse for example. That takes time to disappear. You have to be patient.

Normally there are some steps to recover:
1) Avoid any exercises requiring grip for 5 to 7 days and to put ice.

2) Bring back the upper body exercises gradually with a several warm up exercices with a lighter load and a short session (only 1 or 2 exercices). For this kind of injury, avoid the lower arm supination when you do biceps (it's the rotation of the lower arm, palm face up). Ice after the workout.

3) Increase the intensity and the time of your workout gradually and
do not forget to stretch (45 secondes progressivelly without pain).

What is your job? It can be a factor which avoid your recovery (posture, etc.)...

[jet107]

Thank you! I have a desk job. I have a local kinesiologist that is trying to help, he has applied beeswax and scraped my bicep with a plastic card. My bicep doesn't feel smooth but almost like there is adipose tissue on it-a bumpy feel? It crunches when when he applies pressure almost like there is tissue being broken up, and it's painful. The only thing I can relate it to is when I injured my shoulder. The kinesiologist would manipulate my shoulder into a certain position and then break up the junk that was causing the pain, which would make an audible crunching sound. Once that was done several times my shoulder was back to normal and lifting was pain free.

Unfortunately I am not having the same luck with my bicep. I have stopped ice after working out, but I will start using ice again. I was also using electrical stim that was not helping either.

Thank you for your help, any additional ideas are welcomed! I am plenty frustrated with my inability to recover. I have lost about a half inch on my biceps in the last six months because I can't work arms like normal.
Thank Again!!

[beckie]

where exactly do you feel the pain? is it on the outside or inside of your elbow and does it hurt more when you rotate your wrist? it does sound like an overuse injury so all it means is more rest unfortunately...

[jet107]

The pain is located from the middle to the outside of the front of my left bicep and also where the tendon ties into my forearm. There is no swelling. It does not hurt when I rotate my wrist. Any curling motion hurts regardless of hand position. You would think that preachers would hurt worse but they don't. My outside forearm and lower bicep both hurt with any curl.

I've been told it is everything from a micro tear in the lower bicep to a micro tear in the tendon to tendon damage to tennis elbow(Although my elbow doesn't hurt). I have had two MRI's and the doctor can't figure it out. I quit working arms altogether for two weeks and the pain went away; however, as soon as I picked up a 10 lb dumbbell to warm up and get some blood pumping through my arms the pain returned. It has not reduced my strength it just hurts like Hell. It doesn't matter if it is 10 lbs or 135 lbs it hurts the same???

I was working a one body part per day split, 5 days on 2 days off, my diet was dialed in, cardio was dialed in and I felt great. I was doing hammer curls with very little weight at the end of a workout and can't figure out how such a minor injury could turn into such a big deal.

Thank you for any help you can give. The doctor's just want to treat the symptoms and are not worried about the cause.