I’m a doctor of physical therapy and powerlifter who has worked with many clients with bicep tendonitis and other bicep issues. It’s a very common problem, but one that can be addressed with weight training. Bicep tendon pain can be at the proximal insertion at the front of the shoulder, or the distal insertion a little bit past the elbow.
Lifting weights is not bad for bicep tendonitis. Bicep curls and other exercises are recommended for bicep tendonitis and tendinosis, assuming that your symptoms do not get worse.
It’s imperative that you pay attention to your symptoms and make sure that you are not constantly aggravating it by lifting to heavy or with too much frequency. There is nothing wrong with lifting heavy weights, but, if this is an aggravating factor then you’ll want to reduce your intensity and build up the weight over time.
And some good news; it’s very unlikely you’d need surgery for bicep tendonitis.
In this article we will cover a few key questions:
- Should you keep lifting or rest?
- What types of exercises are best for recovery?
- How to Know If You’re Making Progress?
Should You Keep Lifting Or Rest?
Resting for the first two days is perfectly reasonable, especially if the front of the shoulder is very painful.
What I wouldn’t recommend is resting for weeks or months at a time. You can develop something called “stress shielding,” which makes it so that your tendons are a bit more sensitive.
Then, when you start getting back into lifting again, you are deconditioned from where you were at, try to do the same weight, and end up reaggravating it.
This is a common occurrence with many clients I work with.
Ideally, you would get back to lifting and regular exercise within a couple of days and rather than resting for a long period of time, just modify the intensity (weight), and how much you’re doing.
99% of the time doing something (lifting) is better than doing nothing (rest).
On another note, read this article if you are having trouble sleeping due to biceps tendonitis.
What Types Of Exercises Are Best For Recovery?
This will depend on what type of exercise you respond best to.
I usually will provide the following exercises to my clients:
- Bicep curls, palms facing forward
- Bent over rows
- Concentration curl
Each of these exercises I listed above can be extremely beneficial and you can change up how you perform them too. Peruse this article if you want to learn all the different ways you can modify an exercise routine if you’re having pain.
If you’re curious about an exercise progression for bicep tendonitis, I will link to it in this sentence once i’ve written the article.
How To Know If You’re Making Progress
If you are able to lift and your symptoms are staying below a 4/10 and not getting worse after a workout, then you are clear to continue increasing weight and intensity.
My recommendation is not to increase your intensity or volume by greater than 10-20% when you are recovering from an injury/pain like this.
If you are the type of person where your bicep gets very sensitive even when lifting lighter weights, you’ll likely have to progress much more slowly than if you were able to load it pretty heavy and not have a severe flare-up.
Why Won’t Your Bicep’s Tendonitis Go Away? 2 common reasons.
Reason #1
You keep aggravating it.
If you want it to heal you need to choose the proper dosage of activity, meaning the right weight, sets, reps, and # of times per week.
Reason #2
All you are doing is resting it.
While this might seem like the smart thing to do, this often doesn’t work.
A small amount of rest is fine, however, getting back to exercising and normal activities is the best thing you can do.
How To Prevent Biceps Tendonitis
- Don’t spike your intensity or volume. If you are used to doing 3 sets of 10 reps, it’s likely not wise to go and do 10 sets of 10 reps the next week. You need time to help build up a tolerance to that amount of volume. Intensity means weight, so in the same vein, don’t jump up in weight way higher than you normally would (assuming your intensity is already high on the RPE scale).
- Routinely strength train. If you routinely lift weights, the risk of injury is generally greatly reduced. This has been studied quite comprehensively in athletes.
Key Takeaways
- Lifting weights is not bad for bicep tendonitis.
- Too much rest can be detrimental to recovery
- Steadily progress your weight over time to progress if you have tendonitis and to prevent it from occurring in the first place
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