Biceps Tendinitis

Biceps tendinitis symptoms

If you have the symptoms below, you probably have biceps tendinitis. Do not wait for it to go away. Do not self-medicate. Seek medical attention. These symptoms may indicate a more serious problem, though biceps tendinitis is serious enough.

• Pain when the arm is overhead or bent .
• Localized tenderness as the tendon passes over the groove in the upper arm bone.
• Occasionally, a snapping (or clicking) sound or sensation in the shoulder area.
• Thickness, swelling, and redness in the area over the tendon.
• Pain or discomfort inside elbow while writing.
• Noticeable weakness in any motion involving the affected arm.

If any one of these additional symptoms is also be present, alert your physician and make the earliest possible appointment:

• Numbness in the fingers.
• Profound weakness in any motion involving the affected arm.
• Tingling in the elbow.
• Pain in the neck or chest.
• Unusual coloration in the fingernails.
• Coldness in the fingers.
• Any unusual bulge under the skin.
• Excess thirst.
• Cramps.

How long will the effects last?

The length of recovery depends on many factors such as your age, health, and history of injury.

In the case of previous injury, recovery time depends on the severity of the injury. You may recover from a mild injury may recover within a few weeks. You may need twice that long or even longer to recover from a serious injury.

Stop doing the activities that cause pain until the tendon has healed. If you continue doing activities that cause the tendon pain, your symptoms will return and it will take longer to recover.  Or, worse, you will cause permanent damage that even surgery might not fix.

Some serious strains of the biceps may involve tearing of the attachment of the tendon inside the shoulder joint. These injuries usually have persistent pain and weakness, and may take longer to heal.

Treatment and Rehabilitation:

Your number one concern is getting back to full strength as soon as possible so that you can return to training. That is why appropriate rehabilitation is extremely important. The most common rehabilitation for biceps tendinitis often includes the following:

• Rest, avoid activity during the acute phase.
• Apply ice or a cold pack to the injury for 15 to 20 minutes, 4 times a day for several days to keep swelling down. Wrap the ice or cold pack in a towel. Do not apply the ice directly to your skin.
• Take ibuprofen to help reduce inflammation and pain.
• When the acute pain is gone, start gentle stretching exercises. Stay within pain limits. Hold each stretch for about 10 seconds and repeat 6 times.
• Begin strengthening exercises for your biceps, shoulder, and arm muscles.
• Gradually return to training or your sport. Begin arm motions of your sport or activity. [Source: www.sportsmedicine.upmc.com].

The major objectives of rehabilitation from biceps tendinitis are to improve the elasticity of the biceps tendon and to gradually increase pain-free range of motion.

You want to return you to your sport or activity as soon as is safely possible, not before. If you return too soon, you may worsen your injury and this can lead to permanent damage.

Everyone recovers from injury at a different rate. Whether to return to your activity is determined by how soon your biceps tendon area recovers, not by how many days or weeks it has been since your injury occurred.

You may safely return to your sport or activity when you have full range of motion in the injured arm compared to the uninjured arm, and full strength of the injured arm compared to the uninjured arm. Not before.

Reducing atrophy

During the period when you must rest the affected arm, exercise the other arm. This will invoke the sympathetic training response, stimulating the unexercised arm to retain muscle mass. If you can "go through the motions" without pain (and not using any weights whatsoever), it is also helpful to "train" the injured arm to retain the brain-mapping that is essential to athletic performance.

Also, maintain the hormonal environment. Men will do curls until they can't do them anymore, thinking this builds muscle. It doesn't. Many guys work their arms, wanting "beach muscles," but neglect to work their core. Then they wonder why their arms don't grow. Women tend not to be so vain, but usually have the same problem of not working the core.

Assume there are two twins (same genes) named Al and Bob.

• Al does intense front squats twice a month (optimal recovery window for that workout) and lifts no other weights.
• Bob does a biceps curls workout every 96 hours (optimal recovery window for that workout) and lifts no other weights.

At the end of three months, who will have bigger arms? If you guess Bob, you guessed wrong. Al has a superior hormonal profile, simply because those squats cause the body to respond with maximum testosterone output while the curls cause very little elevation of testosterone.

If you have biceps tendinitis and aren't doing squats, then take three months off your arm workout and just do squats twice a month. You will be very happy with the results, and your tendons will heal.

Prevention

You can best prevent a biceps injury by doing a proper warm-up and stretching exercises for your arms and shoulders before your activity.

Additional ways to avoid another episode of biceps tendinitis is to avoid the activity that caused it. For the serious athlete, frequent breaks from the activity causing pain should become routine. It's wise to reduce or stop the activity at first sign of pain and to ice the biceps and shoulder following each training session.

You can help prevent biceps tendinitis by following these simple recommendations:

• Rest your body regularly by stopping to stretch.
• Increase the frequency and intensity of exercise gradually.
• Apply ice when necessary.
  
   

Benefits from stretching include

• Increased physical efficiency and performance.
• Decreased risk of injury.
• Increased blood supply and nutrients to joint structures.
• Increased coordination.
• Improved muscular balance and better posture.
• Reduced stress.
• Enhanced enjoyment.

Increasing the intake of antioxidant-rich foods and lowering intake of animal fats has been found to reduce inflammation. See the nutrition articles elsewhere on this site. Please note that the normal American diet is guaranteed to cause health problems. Switching to a sensible diet takes very little effort, improves how much enjoyment you can get from your meals, and will eliminate a long list of health problems that sensible eaters just don't get.

Hydrotherapies, such as whirlpool baths are enjoyable, soothing, help relax the surrounding muscles, and aid in the healing process.

If given enough time, tendons will strengthen to meet the demands placed on them. That's what proper training achieves. Tendons grow slowly because of their poor blood supply, so adequate time is required for good conditioning. Doing your workouts with intensity will increase your vascularity and permanently increase the blood supply to those tendons.

Article Authorship

The articles on this site are authoritative, because:

• Every contributor is an expert in his or her field.
• The articles comply with the accepted principles of the bodybuilder literature.
• The articles comply with the teachings of such luminaries as 8-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney.

 Where an article is not bylined with a specific author's name, it was written by Mark Lamendola (see photos on home page and elsewhere on this site). Mark is a 4th degree blackbelt, has not been sick since 1971, and has not missed a workout since 1977. Just an example of how Mark knows what he's talking about: In his early 50s, Mark demonstrated a biceps curl using half his body weight. That's a Jack LaLanne level stunt. Few people can even come close. If you want to know how to build a strong, beautiful body, read the articles here.

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