Bicep repair surgery

I tore the long head tendon in both arms over the last 2+ years and decided to not have surgery.

How old and active are you?

My orthopedic surgeon said that it’s more of a cosmetic decision to fix it since tearing the second bicep tendon deep within the shoulder is extremely rare. He also said bicep strength won’t be affected much at all, and he was right on that. I’ve competed twice at Wodapalooza in Miami (2018 & 2019) and it wasn’t an issue at all.

Pic attached below not long after I tore the left long head tendon late last year. The right one was torn around August of 2016.



The guy who won the Masters 50-54 in Miami last year competed with both long head tendons torn and I’ve met several other CF athletes who chose to not fix the tear.

So, did you tear the long head tendon or the short head?



I’m still active and have never any issues lifting after the soreness from the tear subsided. Strict OHP over 225 and I have benched over 315 since tearing them.

I’m 47, btw. I just didn’t want to go under the knife if it wasn’t really needed.

When they did an MRI on my shoulder, it was only the tendon that I tore and had no other structural damage in the shoulder.

They also couldn’t see the tendon that had torn off the bicep and pulled into the shoulder.

The thought of them having to do some exploring, pulling it back down and reattaching didn’t seem appealing or a quick recovery, so I said nope.

Good luck in your recovery. My guess is 6-9 months; probably the 9 month range if they are cleaning up other shoulder structural damage.

A coworker tore the distal tendon (at the elbow) and it was well over 6 months for him to get close to the pre-tear, but that one has to be repaired since there is only one tendon at the elbow.

Yeah they have to go down into my arm to find the tendon. They are gonna clean up the labrum arthroscopicly and then do a 2 inch incision to find the tendon

quote:

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A coworker tore the distal tendon (at the elbow) and it was well over 6 months for him to get close to the pre-tear, but that one has to be repaired since there is only one tendon at the elbow

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Not exactly.

I tore the distal tendon in my left arm about 8 years ago and tore the right distal tendon in mid-February. Didn’t have surgery then nor planning on it now.

After slowly working left bicep back into lifting, it has only been slightly weaker than the right. As in, if I could get a max of 10 reps on right curl, then I was getting 6-8 on the left curl. Worst part is that my left bicep had been noticeably smaller than the right. At least they look closer in size now.

Never lost strength on any other exercises other than the first six weeks or so with some shoulder exercises. I’m still having to slowly increase weight and reps due to (right) bicep pain with curling. Otherwise, I’m about 10 weeks post right distal tendon repair and I’m back at full strength at all exercises for all body parts except when I isolate my right bicep. Granted, the right bicep does hurt with pulling exercises.

Remember I said that I tore my left bicep tendon at the elbow and I’m not sure exactly how long it took, but definitely less than 18 months I was back to doing curls with the 60# DB.

If I could get 10 reps with the right, I was doing 6-8 with the left and with no pain.

Also, the left tore at approximately 38 y/o and just tore the right in February at 46 y/o.
Left tore doing heavy curls when my elbow slipped off the preacher curl and the right tore when I picked up on a half full chest freezer.