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#ROADTORECOVERY INJURY RECOVERY UPDATE: December 1, 2015 #journal #entry #dual #distalbiceprupture

Update On My Dual Distal Bicep Tendon Rupture

• About 3.5 months since original injury (mid August) occurred.
• Currently ahead of schedule on the recovery process.
• Each week I am getting stronger and stronger.
• I have been back training 80% of my upper-body for the last 3 weeks.
• Training with about 50-60% of original pre-injury weight load (except for legs).

Well at this point I am roughly 7 weeks post-op recovered on my right arm, and 3 months recovered on my left arm. So here’s how things are going for me in each aspect of my life:

Physical State
I feel great overall. When doing house work, cooking, cleaning, laundry, fixing shit around the house, etc. I feel really good. I rarely have any serious pain, but there are times when the right arm tendon area does get sore from being over worked. Currently I do have decent activation in my left arm bicep, but it’s still a work-in-progress with my right arm; the nerves still have not fully regenerated yet, but each week it’s getting better and better.

My bodies current “lean” condition isn’t superb, but isn’t horrible (best way I can describe it). During this whole time I couldn’t train my upper body completely at all, up until about 3-4 weeks ago (started training lite as shit), I have been detoxing my body from vitamins, enhancements, pre-workouts, not eating as I was (more clean food, less junk), lately I have been snacking on crap food at night (not really giving a shit really), and just being human and normal. So ya, all that can contribute to a persons body composition/condition to diminish. I’ll be honest, after I hurt my right arm 8 weeks ago, my mental state went down a lot, and I gave in to not giving a shit about my night-time nutrition as much. I was doing great with just my left arm hurt/healing, but when the right took a big blow with the freak accident I had, I lost some extra hope at that moment in time. These days however, it’s slowly coming back. I did give myself until the beginning of 2016 to just take it easy and coast until then with my nutrition, as I don’t plan of stepping on the gas again until then when I am closer to being 100% healed.

Training
Right now I am training about 50-60% of the weights I was prior to injury with my upper-body; bicep training however is maybe 20%. Many movements I do on biceps still give me aches and pains, and lately I have been getting wrist pains like no other, especially in the left wrist. But I have been training through some of these aches and pains. All movements have been complete focus, so I can think about the stretch and contraction of the muscles; nothing forced, nothing sloppy. I may not being training heavy as I was, but my size and body weight is currently going up because I am focusing on chasing the pump and pushing as much blood into the muscles that I can. Leg training is going well, but I can tell my knees and quads are feeling the abuse, as they have been my flagship bodypart for getting me through these last 4 months. I have been training legs 2-3 times a week at times, just so I can have something to look forward to do in the gym, while I healed. I haven’t gone full-blast on them until the last 3-4 weeks, and they are letting me know that it maybe time to take 2-3 weeks off again (I used to implement a 1-2 week break from training legs after 8-10 weeks of hard training before I got injured 4 months ago). Getting up from the couch, I have aches in my “tear drop” of the quads and knees, then when I get on my knees to pickup something, then try to get back up, it’s a son of a bitch bigtime.

But since I have been able to train my upper-body with atleast 50% weight, my mental state has felt great; I’m starting to feel like myself again. The pumps are coming, the size is coming, the atrophy is slowly going away, and my arm size is coming back. Many have mentioned to me that they are surprised how fast I am gain my entire body mass again.

I am scared and worried when I train however. I have those moments flash in my mind when I reach the 8-12 rep range on something that says “is this when the tendon will snap again!? I won’t get a warning, so should I stop here?” There are definitely some moments of doubt, and the stress level increases for a bit. There are some exercises that I WILL NOT EVEN ATTEMPT due to be unsure and scared of doing it, such as the deadlifts, heavy barbell chest presses, barbell rows, heavy cables, dumbbell presses/shoulder presses, dumbbell flys, dumbbell pullovers, heavy curls, dumbbell tricep extensions etc. Basically anything with mild weight dumbbells, and heavy compound movements with the barbell.

I have been doing band resistance movements on chest, shoulders, smith machine chest presses, smith machine should presses, machines for biceps, triceps, back, cables (nothing heavy, just focusing on slow stretches and hard contractions). As I stated I am just focusing on pushing as much blood into the muscle as I can, slow negative movements, solid contractions, and focusing on the mind/muscle connection. I won’t be training heavy until 2016, as I must play this heal-game smart and efficient.

Nutrition
As I stated earlier, after the second injury, my focus on nutrition diminished. Lately, however, it has been increasing again as a result of being able to train almost fully again (fully meaning, I can utilize my upper-body, but it does not mean I am training at 100%), and I’m starting to feel like myself again. I’m still eating shit at night haha, but I’m making sure to intake in more clean foods along with it. So instead of having 4 clean meals, then eating shit at night, I’m now doing 6 clean meals with some garbage snacks. I’m not really counting carbohydrate calories these days, meaning not measuring (I have never counted calories, I find it worthless, as the mirror will tell you what you need to do, and your training performance will also guide you), and I’m just eating to stay energized [enough] and focusing on getting my body back up in weight. Before I could train upper-body again a month ago, I got down to a sloppy 215lbs. or so (down from 235lbs. before injury), and now I am roughly 222-225 again; still sloppy lol. Not too worried about getting my conditioning back until 2016 starts. No point on focusing on getting strict with the holidays going on, I’ll get strict after Christmas and New Years. The good part about these injuries is that it allowed me to clean my body out, and also enjoy things I usually didn’t when it came to being relaxed with food, and just having what I wanted, and when I wanted. Getting conditioning back isn’t a hard thing for me. Once I focus, things are easy, and I am looking forward to getting focused again once the new year starts.

Physical Therapy
This is a session I look forward to each and every week. After the first session I had with John Farahmand, CEO of Balance Physical Therapy of Salinas/Monterey, about 5 weeks ago I knew it was one of the best decision I could have ever made for my recovery process. Each session he stretches my tendons, breaks down scar tissue, increases mobility, helps me remove some of the aches and pains I have with my surgery location, has me train on standard simple movements (with gym equipment) that will stretch and enhance the mobility of the bicep tendons. Lately we have been utilizing Stims electronics to stimulate the biceps, and forcing them to contract without the use of the nervous system. If anyone has an injury to rehab from, this is the place and professional to go see! He loves what he does, and you can see the passion he has for helping people get back to being themselves, and performing even higher then before.

Mental State
During the first injury it was pretty shitty for those first 3-4 weeks, but then I got to slowly train upperbody again. But once I injured my right bicep tendon, it really went into the shitter. I mean, I was a depressed dog inside. I felt like a failure, I felt ashamed, I felt like a loser, I felt people were shaking their heads at me saying to themselves “he should have stayed out of the gym, and he probably did something stupid.”, I felt horrible that I had to put my wife and kids through this shit again (even worst at this point, since my left was still healing, and my right arm got hurt, as I am a right dominate individual), I slept on the couch for the first 9 days after the 2nd surgery. I couldnt sleep like a vampire with the sling and cast in the bed, so sleeping on the couch (propped sideways) made it easier for me to get some sleep. I didn’t like leaving my wife in bed alone. But after I got through all that, I started slowly getting better mentally as my arms started to heal fast. These days I feel really good mentally, and I see the light at the end of the tunnel. By January/February I should be very close to 100%, so that isn’t too far away.

HGH Therapy
Since the 2nd surgery, the 2ius per day (every day in the morning 1 hour before meal 1) has done me wonders. Using this for tendon recovery/repair was a great idea, and I highly recommend anyone that has to heal from tendon/bone/ligament repairs to look into getting HGH therapy. I am roughly 6-8 weeks ahead of schedule in my recovery process. As my therapist says “You are blowing away the standard recovery time.” During my 6 weeks post-op check-in (last week), I ask him if he thought I was ahead of the game. He said “that after 6 weeks we would usually just be working to get movement back in your arm, and just teach it to extend again. You are now training with it, using it normally, fully range of motion/extension, and putting it under some load already. Blowing away the recovery time dude.”

My Thoughts On What Has Helped My Recovery to This Point
From the start, 3.5 months ago, I told myself “keep moving. keep active.” and I did that. I set a goals list to follow, and I’m doing it. I was going to be advocate for Active Recovery, even if I had to train with one-arm, which I did, I was going to do it. Keep the good food going into the body, basic vitamins, fluids, rest, and keep the mind in a positive state as best as possible. I also told myself, even though I might feel depressed at times, try to be as positive as possible, even if I had to put on a fake smile when I down. Nothing good can come out if you bring others down that are around you, so keep being positive; it has an important purpose (and yes, there were times I did fail at this, but I told myself to try harder the next time). I told myself 13 weeks ago to follow these goals:

1. Get good enough to get out of the cast/sling. ACHIEVED!
2. Keep physically active. ACHIEVED!
3. Able to start lite therapy. ACHIEVED!
4. Ensure mobility/movement is good. ACHIEVED!
5. Start lite upper body training again. ACHIEVED!
6. Able to do everyday things easily again. ACHIEVED!
7. Have no serious aches/pains. ACHIEVED! (updated 8/11/2016)
8. Get back to full steam. ACHIEVED! (updated 8/11/2016)
9. Take my wife on a vacation 🙂 GONNA HAPPEN!
10. Decide to write a comeback story, rather then disappear and be forgotten. ACHIEVING!

But one the main things that kept me going in my mind was, “This is a test. A test to see if this is a passion that’s worth it. I can either heal and move onto something else, so I don’t hurt myself again, or I can heal and comeback stronger and better, and pass this test. Is the passion worth the sacrifice?” I made sure to pass this test, and comeback stronger….and I am achieving that one day at a time. This passion is worth the sacrifice, because I love it.

“Strength does not come from winning. … When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

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