The Injuries Thread - Page 24

1.

The pain is located quite high on the body of my sternum. About 4-5 fingers down from the bottom of the sternoclavicular joint

2. The pain flares up during any kind of transverse adduction movements regardless of weight. As for exercises, pushups will activate the pain and on some occasions when I push my chest out during the second pull of a clean or snatch (from above knee to hip)

3. It is definitely more of a sharp pain. Once I activate it, it comes very abruptly and dissipates in a second or two. There is no lingering pain, numbness, or tingling.

4. I would rate it at a 6 if I do squeeze hard doing shoulder transverse adduction movements, maybe a 2-4 when stretching or doing the Olympic lifts

5. This pain developed about 2 weeks ago. The pain has not improved when doing the aforementioned movements, but otherwise will not flare up if I avoid them.

6. I have been training through this pain since it developed.

7. The pain feels pretty superficial. The most accurate I can describe it as is that it feels like it starts 5 fingers down from the sternoclavicular joint, right down the middle. That is where the pain is most intense. It does not feel like it spreads to anything else.

8. For recovery, I have done a lot of pectoral stretches and rolling out. I have also done the same with my upper back.

9. At first, stretching out the pectoralis minor would help make the pain go away and keep it away even if i did the things that would normally make it hurt but that was very temporary and after a few days, even stretching out those muscles did not help. The pain is about as painful each time depending on what I'm doing.

10. I have very little muscle around that area but with all the stretching and rolling out I've done on it anyways, none of it feels tight or tender. There is definitely no swelling, no bruising, or any other sign of damage.

11. It feels better after a warm up, but I'm still conscious of it. There is no certain time of the day where it's worse or better but depending on how I sleep, some mornings can be rougher than others.

12. I have had no previous injury history anywhere near that area.

13. I'm actively trying to maintain as neutral of a posture as possible. I try to avoid excessive pelvic tilt as well as hyperextension of my spine. This goes for both when i'm on my feet or sitting down.

14. The most I do for my chest is pull-ups. Oddly enough, that exercise does not activate the pain. My routine involves mainly Olympic lifting and I do not play any other sport.

15. Pressing on that area does not produce any tenderness or pain. Expanding my lungs and thus pushing my rib cage out from deep breathing does not produce any pain.

So you can give yourself costcondritis/tietze syndrome/etc. by aggravating your costal cartilages by doing this.

Since the origin of the pecs is on the sternum and partially on the costal cartilages, if you haven't used your chest in resistance trainig much before the connective tissues aren't as strong. Thus, when you do a deep movement where you really stretch out the pecs/chest like dips, the origin of the muscle on the costal cartilages can start to pull them away from the costal facets on the sternum

Obviously, this creates inflammation and in general can lead to some popping and hurting.


Best thing you can do is REST AND LET IT HEAL. Take your anti-inflammatories to help decrease inflammation and allow healign to occur. Fish oil is always good. Massage to the area works as well.

Ice if it helps. Otherwise, once it starts feeling better use heat to stimulate more blood flow to encourage faster healing from the body since the area does not get a lot of blood flow as it is bone/cartilage in that area.

Keep the muscles working through full but non-weight bearing and non-painful range of motion so that the muscles don't tighten up on you, and the muscle movement will also help stimulate blood flow to the area as well.

Usually, if you didn't chronically aggravate you should be able to get back to exercising within a week.

Just avoid the exercise that aggravates it for a while, and focus on other exercises that are less intense of the chest... and then work your way back into these SLOWLY so you don't reaggravate your condition.

Also, work on your posture!! Poor posture can put the tissues in a poor position and aggravate it