Had a really scary night tonight guys.
Tonight was Max Effort bench day and I was doing reverse band presses. I worked up to 445 X 3, 495 X 3, 535 X 1 with the heavy bands. Then I decided to go for 545. I got myself way too amped for the set, and as I lowered it to my chest, instead of focussing on proper form and hitting my lower chest/upper abs and pressing straight up I let it hit mid chest and instead of dumping it tried to press it. Immediately I felt my right pec stretch and give. I screamed "NO!" at the top of my lungs. I thought that was it, I thought for sure I had torn my pec. I sat up and I couldn't even look Isabel in the eyes. I was very upset, I broke out in a cold sweat and felt like I wanted to vomit. I didn't want to lift up my shirt to look at it but I knew I had to. I pulled off my shirt and took a look. No bruising or discoloration and suprisingly no immediate pain, just tightness. I tried flexing it and to my suprise it did flex. Then I started to get some pain after a few minutes. I was still convinced I had partially torn it even though you couldn't really see any dislocation of the pec or mis-shape.
Isabel and I both immediately decided to go to the hospital. I wanted to have someone look at this tonight. I had ice on it for 2 hours and by the time the doc saw it it was very tight. He had me go through some exercises. I wasn't feeling much pain I just told him it was very tight. I could still put my hand over my head, I could still resist him, and my flexibility was decent.
The doctor said he felt I had a severe strain. He felt that if I had injured the pec I would be in much more pain than I was. He told me to give it 5-7 days of rest then try out my flexibility in the gym. So right now I am cautiously optimistic. Hopefully 48 hours will come and go with no bruising and then likely I'll be in the clear. I felt like such a fucking moron. I always preach about being careful in the gym and here I was, rushing through my workout, not warming up properly, and not executing the lift properly. I have no one to blame but myself. Hopefully this is a blessing in disguise to remind me that anyone can get injured at anytime. Hopefully it heals up fine and I can still do a powerlifting show in the summer. Right now the pec is pretty swollen but unless i stretch it hard there is very little pain. I'll keep you guys updated. I just feel like such a moron. Isabel was really great through the whole thing, as were my buddies in the gym, I had at least 15 people tell me that they hoped I was ok on the way out, made me feel better.
So I think i'm going to have to pull out of the full meet
I may do the next one when it comes up sorry guys
-Layne
