Abdominal Muscle Strain — Anyone Experienced This?
A couple of days ago, I was in the gym doing heavy squats. Everything was fine until about the third rep of my second set. While at the bottom of my squat, I felt/heard a “pop” in my abdomen, followed my mild discomfort (not severe pain).
My doctor diagnosed a strain of the abdominal muscles — specifically, a strain of the right exterior oblique muscle at the point of attachment to my ribcage.
I know this sounds like a minor injury compared with some of the other injuries being discussed here, but believe me, it is NO minor injury!!! Everything I do in the gym and on the water (I’m a rower) is now compromised. I can’t weight train without significant pain, can only do light cardio, and even taking deep breaths and/or coughing is painful.
I was wondering if anyone has had a similar injury, and if so would be willing to share their experience? I’d be most interested in how long you needed to recover fully, and how you modified your training to speed recovery.
Thanks for your help!
4 comments
Annette30
[quote]
On 2002-12-11 17:58, Rower wrote:
A couple of days ago, I was in the gym doing heavy squats. Everything was fine until about the third rep of my second set. While at the bottom of my squat, I felt/heard a “pop” in my abdomen, followed my mild discomfort (not severe pain).
My doctor diagnosed a strain of the abdominal muscles — specifically, a strain of the right exterior oblique muscle at the point of attachment to my ribcage.
I know this sounds like a minor injury compared with some of the other injuries being discussed here, but believe me, it is NO minor injury!!! Everything I do in the gym and on the water (I’m a rower) is now compromised. I can’t weight train without significant pain, can only do light cardio, and even taking deep breaths and/or coughing is painful.
I was wondering if anyone has had a similar injury, and if so would be willing to share their experience? I’d be most interested in how long you needed to recover fully, and how you modified your training to speed recovery.
Thanks for your help!
[/quote Have you been doing heavy lifting? Maybe give yourself a break, and see if that will help, maybe try to not lift too heavy of weights. If that does not help I would suggest seeing I doctor who is specialized in sports related injuries. You said you had already seen your regular doctor. If there is no sports specialist in your area, I would suggest changing your doctor.
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I have a similar abdominal – illiopsoas injury? The pain is at the abominal insertion point on the right side just to the left of where the hip flexors for the right leg are, and just below where the appendix normally sits – inline with the top of the pubic bone. I have had my pain come and go for several months. The injury occurred during a game of soccer I think – although I do weights (not heavy) as well. I am currently seeing a sports specialist who ordered an ultrasound and bone scan. Both scans cleared me of a hernia, muscle tears and hairline fracture of the pelvis. He has referred me to a specialist to rule out low grade appendicitis and if this is negative he will administer a course of cortisone injections.
Rower
Harley Guy:
What a pain in the ass ab injuries are, huh? It’s been over a month since I hurt myself, and I actually seem to be healing (I figured this would be with me for the rest of my life). No drugs or physiotherapy… just adjustments to my diet and weight-training. I’ve been loading up on good sources of protein to give my body the building blocks it needs to repair the muscle. I’ve also cut out the exercises that gave me the pain. I’ve substituted leg presses for squats, back hyperextensions in place of deadlifts, etc… Things have been going so well that I actually tried squatting with 80% of the weight I used when I hurt myself… felt great. I’m still a little leary of re-aggrevating the injury though, so I’m gradually re-introducing squats and deads.
Funny thing… the only time I notice the injury now is when I shovel snow, of all things (and there’a a lot of it to shover where I live). I can work my obliques with no pain whatsoever, but shovelling snow is another thing. Can’t figure it. There’s no pain per se, just a feeling of something “floating around” in my abdomen, like there’s a ruptured piece of muscle in there or something. Hope that’s not it.
Have you tried loading up on protein and adjusting your workouts? Sorry I don’t have anything more to offer right now, but I’m going to be researching this some more (I don’t want this to be a recurring thing), so I’ll let you know if I run accross some useful information.
Harley Guy
Hi.. I also have been suffering from the same pain that you have, mine is either from the obliques or the Transversus Abdominus. I get pains both at the ribs and at the top of my hip bone (at the hip bone it is a burning sensation) where the muscles attach at the lower end. I did it by lifting some weight and bending the wrong way when setting it down and I also heard the “pop”. It has been several years for me and the pain comes and goes but when it gets aggravated it is “really painful”. I have been putting up with it for so long because I didn’t really know what it was and my doctors just scratched their heads.. clueless. I have finally decided to find some help because it does become so painful when I aggravate it (that is why I am here) and to find some professional help to see how to get it healed. Please inform me if you hear of anything else and I will do the same..