My pec tear surgery 1 year anniversary... the year in pictures

[ah24]

layne, you there?

Give the guy a break, the guy only posted that Q yesterday - Laynes a busy dude

[Zinzani]

"You got nothin for me"

I love it!

[str8flexed]

I have a question. Have you learned how to NOT bench now?

awww, there's my little tag-along hater who comes into every thread to vent his insecurities. That's so sweet of you.

Hope you're doing well, thanks for following

[str8flexed]

Hi Layne, when did you start working your upper body after your surgery? I tore my left pec and had surgery 5 weeks ago. One more week with the damm brace. I am doing cardio and some light leg workouts. Thanks for your posting, it helped me decide to have the surgery. James

got cleared to start rehab 10 weeks post pec tear.

I wasn't able to start going real hard til like 9 months afterwards, but it was progressive. Now I'm stronger than I was before my pec tear. Hit 125s on incline for 14 reps a few weeks ago and hit 315 for 7 reps on flat bench doing paused reps. Both were PRs regardless of pre or post pec tear.

-Layne

[str8flexed]

layne, you there?

actually i've been out of town for 2 weeks house hunting in tampa where my wife and are relocating after we buy a house and I graduate with my PhD.

considering I usually deal with about 150 emails on a daily basis, and I'm doing all this house stuff, and trying to complete my article obligations, and trying to write a speech for a big scientific symposium in late april so hopefully you guys can forgive me for not being so prompt

[str8flexed]

Layne - great to see such a great comeback from that type of injury. I had a total rupture in '00 ( surgery was not an option ) and I know what you have had to go thru to get to this point.

Thanks, I appreciate it man. It was tough but it was a blessing in disguise.

[william_dave291205]

actually i've been out of town for 2 weeks house hunting in tampa where my wife and are relocating after we buy a house and I graduate with my PhD.

considering I usually deal with about 150 emails on a daily basis, and I'm doing all this house stuff, and trying to complete my article obligations, and trying to write a speech for a big scientific symposium in late april so hopefully you guys can forgive me for not being so prompt

hah! that explains your absence in the interwebz! good to hear you're doin' great.

[sanmohan]

Hi Layne! I too have been through this trauma last month (pec tear at the musculotendinous joint). Just completed 6 1/2 weeks post-surgery. I am not into any sort of professional sports or BB, but maintain an above average strenghth & fitness (at 43years). At no point of time my surgeon ever mentioned about 'joining two hamburgers'. He only declared that it is not a simple surgery to perform. In my case, there are three anchors (titanium screws) drilled to my humerus (shoulder bone) and the combination of sutures to 'hook' the torn sternal-head. I have some queries for you;
1. I have not read anything about your surgery details. How it was managed?
2. I had gone through several post-surgery protocols wherein the 'Pendulum exercises' were introduced right from day 2 and brace/sling during normal time to avoid unstructured movements. In your case, you were tied till the muscle actually heals. This is contradictory to logic of not allowing the muscle to heal in contraction. I started moving my hands & some isometrics from the 3rd or 4th day post-surgery due to profuse sweating (as it is sultry in this part of the world) & itchy discomfort. I could do some bicep curls & shoulder adduction after the 10th day. In the end of 4th week I could attain almost 60 to 70% range of motion. Into the 5th week I was doing dumble flies (15lbs each) & some isometric stretches of the chest. Today the range is almost 95%.
3. I have not seen you performing any bench maneuvers. If yes, are you really feeling OK with that? Dead-lift uses mostly your leg & back muscles which you strenghtened more all these months. Your take on this & advice for me please?
4. Do you experience painful strain or restriction in your bench maneuver/push-ups or overhead lifts?
Thanks & wish you a great health.

[str8flexed]

well I think your injury was probably slightly different than mine. Even though mine was diagnosed as a tear at the muscle:tendon junction by the MRI tech, when the surgeon opened me up he said almost all the tear was in the muscle belly near the junction, but that it was mostly in the muscle belly, making the repair very unstable. As for your specific questions

1) Can you be more specific? That's a pretty broad question
2) I started doing some very short pendulum stuff at 3 weeks post surgery, but as I said, the repair was so unstable they didn't want me to move it at all the first 3 weeks, the surgeon said he thought if I so much as sneezed or coughed hard it might come apart and re-tear
3) I started benching again about 1 year post pec tear with different form (elbows tucked) and worked my way back up to a 365 lb bench by 2 years post tear. At first it felt somewhat funky when I'd press with it, but now I don't really feel anything. Very very very rarely I will get some phantom pain in there, but it's quite rare.
4) nope. I have full range of motion on everything. I'm really very fortunate, so far as I can tell 2.5 years after I tore it I have no long lasting ill effect. And you can't even really tell that I tore it, these photos were taken mid-july, you can see my right pec indents just a tiny bit further than my left, but if I didn't point it out, I doubt anyone would notice. Please excuse the ridiculous faces

-Layne

[frank hunger]

good job bro..training legs while you healed ...good call

[sanmohan]

Oh Great Layne! You look like million bucks. Sorry for round-about query. I meant- Did surgeon mention how he went about the surgery? Your surgery was done almost around the 2nd week of your injury. Same as mine. My surgeon mentioned about the difficulty in pulling the muscle back to the position. According to him, 1st day is the best for surgery success. I hope I will take tips from you often. As a matter of fact, there are no clear protocols for this kind of surgery. I have seen lot of versions, as this surgery is not very common. I have a very clear photo of my 'first-incision' on the table. Don't know how to upload it. Good luck & wish you a great life.

[str8flexed]

from what I understand he used a graph similar to what they use for abdominal hernia's using stitching that was dissolvable. They made it sturdier by putting medical glue in as well. In his words "basically you are held together by shoe laces and bubble gum"

LOL

[EVILNEON]

^^^Did you stick to your conventional diet while healing? I know when my cousin tore his he couldnt even do cardio with out pain. In return gained 10lbs in fat.

[sanmohan]

It sounds so different. Perhaps, different world differnt approach. Surgeons do apply lot of their imagination. In my case, it was three screws, as I mentioned earlier, & the dissolvable threads fastened/anchored to those. Anyways, as you are already doing great is a testimony in itself & your age can absorb this kind of physical abuse too.
I have been reading an article for muscle build-up which even suits people across all ages. LIGHTER WEIGHTS REPS (NOT GROANING TO REPS WITH HEAVY WEIGHTS), TILL YOU SAY 'NO-MORE', CAN HELP YOU BUILD MUSCLES TOO. Heavier lifting has really thrown us off. Ofcourse, leasons learned too. Can you really add to this? What about your view on the BB as you age?

[Brutal Master]

Here is me before surgery 1 year ago. I wasn't really nervous at all. Something told me it would work, I'm not sure why but I was convinced it would work, and if it didn't I was still determined to find a way to overcome the ordeal.

When the surgeon walked in I said "You got your game face on doc?"

He said "Yup, let's do this"

my kind of guy

when I woke up out of surgery it took me all of 3 seconds to regain my bearings and ask "HOW DID IT GO!" They told me it went better than they could have possible expected. I smiled and thought "that's all I needed to hear"

It was ON! after that point. Apparently I was groggy enough that Isabel told me I kept repeating the same thing to the nurse 5 times in a row LOL

Can you guess which pics are pre op and which are post op? LOL

is that adex or some other oral on the end table? i knew he wasnt natty

[zzmacman]

is that adex or some other oral on the end table? i knew he wasnt natty

It's possible that those might be pain killers.....

[sanmohan]

Here are some of the pics. My surgery management seems to be in sharp contrast to your's Layne!