I took some time out from writing as I suffered an injury, significant enough to take me out of training for a while. It happened while I was sparring in a no-gi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class: I was trying to grab somebody in a collar grip with my stronger, left arm. Before I knew it my left arm seized and any attempt at grabbing was met with severe pain. My opponent threw me and I was on the floor clutching my arm and wondering what the hell happened!
A few medical appointments later and it was clear I had a partial tendon rupture where the bicep connects to the bone. It happens more frequently with males over the age of 35 (hello me). Some photos below should provide you with a visual indication:
Recovery can happen without surgery, however there is a marked decrease in strength of arm supination (this is the rotation of the forearm and hand so that the palm faces forward or upward). I opted for surgery (and the potential complications this might involve). I’m due to go under the knife tomorrow…
Psychologically
I was really quite depressed after the injury. I’ll admit I had quite trivial belt aspirations this year given I was long overdue a belt upgrade in both BJJ and Judo. Even more crushing was just how much my grappling training defined me – to now recognize that I’d be off for a while was difficult to accept. Eventually, after speaking with medical professionals and mapping out for myself a learning and training journey to fill the interim period my mind settled. My partner jokingly said I went through the 5 stages of grief!
Physically
My affected arm hurts only mildly but the original pain was returning after I attempted to train again after a couple of weeks. As I say, from my research I see that the pain does subside and you can get some return of mobility without surgery but not to the same strength level.
Conclusion
The internet is usually a great place to scare yourself silly with misdiagnoses and worst case scenario injuries, but in this case it was actually a treasure trove of really useful info. I need to call out some of the Youtube content I found very valuable, particularly Mark Lidster, Andy Baker and Ben Carpenter.
I plan to post updates via this blog, however I will also post out some articles that I was in the middle of writing to ensure my 2-3 readers from all over the world get something in the meantime!
2 replies on “Senior Injuries: Distal Bicep Tendon rupture”
[…] bring you up-to-date, I tore my left distal bicep tendon at the end of March this year. A surgery and extensive rehabilitation program later, I partook in […]
[…] I first ruptured my left distal bicep tendon I scoured the internet for details of what recovery involved. I found a dearth of information about […]