How I Gradually Degraded And Finally Ruptured A Biceps Tendon

Calisthenics and bodyweight strength training advice for older athletes.
I recently broke one of my biceps tendons. Completely broke. As in: snapped in half. I also severely damaged one of my rotator cuff tendons. There were clear warning signs that I didn’t pay attention to in the months leading up to the incident. In this video, I describe exactly what I did that lead to this injury.
Hashtags:
#OlderAthlete #FitOver50 #AgingWarrier #Calisthenics
#BodyweightStrength #BodyweightFitness #RotatorCuff
#SportsInjury #BicepsTendon #TendonRupture

[@DevinsCalisthenics]

Great video, good reality check! I'm 42 and had to stop doing chin ups for months due to golfer's elbow that just gradually got worse. There are some things you can't walk off. Thankfully now I found a good rehab exercise that seems to be improving it. Good luck with your recovery as well! It's always a good learning experience, pain is a good teacher.

[@richardyates1417]

You are a remarkable athlete for any age. I am 66 and trying to slowly get back into upper body workouts after 6 weeks of PT followed by PRP injections in the shoulder. Needless to say your story made me swallow hard. You have encouraged me to take my foot off of the gas. Thanks for sharing your important message, and I pray that you heal quickly and thoroughly.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Thanks, I appreciate that and I hope my experience helps you. It's definitely better not to get injured. I'm still struggling with this stuff: I've hurt my shoulder several times this year (the right shoulder - not the one I had surgery on). It's very hard to slow down and give myself time to recover. One thing I've discovered though: it's not such a bad thing to take some time off. You get back to where you were relatively quickly.

[@diopardo9715]

I’m 50 and I do muscle ups handstand pushups etc. been a minimalist for a while. Haven’t felt pain I could t recover from in a couple of weeks in a while. By training this way. Just recently I started training more frequently. Fine in the beginning but now I feel aches around shoulder. I appreciate this video very much and I’m going to take it as a warning. - allow connective tissue to recover - address discomfort before it becomes painful - train minimal while progressing slowly God bless brother I think you just spared me injuries I just can’t afford.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Thanks! And yeah - I hope it helps you.

[@JKillen]

Just tore my bicep in the most bizarre way. was reaching for something and it tore. I do landscaping and crook my arm a lot. Lots of paddling in the ocean. The fact it happened while you were juggling just reinforced what it you said and what my friends said: You're getting older. I'm 37. I still train like I'm 27, and introduced a lot of new things that really added up in the end.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Wow, that's surprising. Sorry to hear about your torn bicep. I guess overtraining and getting older don't mix.

[@d.wayneotto1094]

Thank you for sitting me down and explaining this to me. I'm 60 and go hard at calisthenics every day. When I feel "off", or ill, or "tweak" or "pull" something, I've not had the good sense to stay away from the gym and recover. My approach has always been to "work through it". Not good, I know. But I'd do it anyway. However, since watching your biceps tendon experience, I've gained a whole new appreciation of the reality of my situation. Thanks to you, I will now stop what I'm doing, take time to recover, and not feel guilty about it. For that, I thank you. 🙏

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Thanks. I hope it helps you. Yeah, at some point all this stuff catches up to you. Or maybe (hopefully) there's way to keep adjusting as you get older. Very impressive that you can go hard at it every day at 60!

[@LorraineCLadish]

Don’t push through. I am soon 60 and I have learned the hard way not to! I’m am recovering from a rotator cuff tear.

[@limsk9580]

Very helpful tips for the aging group not to exceed their limits.

[@avnerdayan6302]

This video show so much humility and courage and document an area that’s usually under spoken about in present tense and in details everyone want to look like a success story most most appreciated

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Thanks - I just hope it helps a few people. And for me: I just felt like it was important to get my experience out there.

[@ilikefrogsilikefrogs6102]

Very informative. Wish you a speedy recovery

[@jeroend1899]

I've had my share of injuries over the years and learned a bit about the different kinds of pain: 1. If it's a sharp pain, it's a fresh injury and you need to stop immediately. Apply cold in the first 24 hours, swap cold and hot for the next two days. 2. If it's a dull pain, it's a stable injury and you need rest and extremely controlled movements. 3. If it's a thumping or itching pain, it's a healing injury and you need very controlled movements and rest. 4. If it's a stubborn pain, you need to go see a doctor. And it's okay if your ego gets injured, it will heal a lot faster than your body.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Thanks! That's a useful summary!

[@Filip-ci3ng]

Thank you for the warning, I’m sure it will be helpful to many

[@ruthhuijgens]

It sounds like I actually have the exact same sharp pain in the back of my left shoulder! It appeared in August when I was doing +25kg dips (probably too deep) at 46kg bodyweight (probably also should mention that I'm a girl, I'm not a skeleton!) It's been on and off ever since then, last Saturday it really hurt badly again when doing back lever, could only hold it for 5s. And just now it hindered my MU transition so I decided to just leave it like that and do different exercises instead that felt better. Anyways thanks for sharing your story! I'm 31 but even so, this pain keeps haunting me for months now and I just want it to go away so that I can train hard. Your story made me realize that I really do need to back off for a while and let the thing heal properly. I'll be focusing more on FL and HS work for now. Thank you!! This maybe saved my calisthenics journey, who knows. Edit - Forgot to say: best of luck with your rehab! I (quite literally) feel your pain of not being able to train as you want. Since it's almost been a year now, how is the rehab going for you?

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Wow - you weigh 46Kg and you were doing dips with 25Kg? That's crazy! At my strongest I couldn't have come close to that. But yeah, since my problems I've realized that a lot of people have trouble with dips. I think they're pretty hard on the shoulders. And if back levers started hurting you, that does sound like it could be biceps. So you could have a similar injury. It's not a bad idea to see a physical therapist. If you get a good physical therapist, they might be able to point you in the right direction, as far as what kinds of exercises to do to recover, and to prevent injury. Also I know it feels like you have to go hard all the time, but it's not a bad thing to take a break - even a long break. You'll get back to where you were pretty quickly. My recovery is going great. My left shoulder/biceps (the one I had surgery on) seems perfect. I can't really even tell it was ever injured. Unfortunately, my right shoulder holds me back. That one had even worse injuries - the supraspinatus was torn almost all the way through. I can work out OK, and it's improving, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to work seriously on planches and one-arm pullups again. The joys of aging...

[@diopardo9715]

Seems like dips can be a problem when going too deep or too heavy or both. I injured myself years ago going heavy on dips. I’ll stick to handstand pushups and overhead presses. Thanks for sharing.

[@ruthhuijgens]

@@The_Aging_Warrior Ah man that sucks.. That tear sounds like a truly gruesome injury. I sincerely hope your right shoulder will improve too over time! Because let's face it, training hard is just too much fun to not do it. But if the shoulder does not allow it, there's almost always something else worth working on. For me, I backed off completely for a while and the pain is now completely gone since a couple of weeks, started doing a few high rep (ca. 50) dip sets per week again to prehab the thing, with just bodyweight. Tried back lever again and it went fine, but I'm a little scared to re-injure myself so I'm taking it slowly. In the meantime I significantly improved the weight I can hold in my arms while standing in a box split, and focused more on hand balancing which is always fun, but often neglected. In any case, I very much hope that you can keep on doing what you like, and making videos about it :) Thanks again for the warning that you shared, I'll always keep this in mind going further.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

@@ruthhuijgens Thanks! My left shoulder/bicep is pretty much fully recovered now. My right shoulder still holds me back, but is (possibly?) getting better.

[@wokefusion3310]

Being just a little younger than you, I have made some mental notes! Thanks for sharing your experience. Good luck on the continued recovery.

[@spooniegee]

Great summary and advice. Thanks for helping our tribe of aging warriors.

[@StreetArtist360]

Great video. Thank you very much. I have learnt a lot in this session.

[@MrMcGillicuddy]

There are some things you just can't prevent when it comes to aging but I'd like to mention one thing because I believe A LOT of people don't realize this. I don't know what your diet is like but as you age you should eat more protein not less. There is so much talk about it being hard on your kidneys to eat excess protein but if you actually look there is no study that proves causation. In fact there are many people with severe kidney damage that heal by eating way more than what is recommended. My point is that bone, muscle, tendons and organ systems need a lot of high quality protein to not only maintain healthy tissue but also build upon. I think probably one of the main issues that people associate with aging is actually slowly depriving yourself of proper nutrition. High quality animal fat, meat and fish is very important as well as removing certain foods that hinder assimilation of nutrients. I believe if you are relatively active but you aren't eating at least 1 gram of protein per lb of lean body mass ,OR MORE as you age, it isn't surprising that you'd get a tendon injury. I mean at any age. Don't get me wrong there is also not listening to your body's pain response like you described but 55 is still pretty young if you give your body the building blocks it needs to recover and heal. It's amazing to me how many people I see wondering what is wrong with their health and recovery time. They can't figure out why they can't build a house when they only ordered half the building materials and a quarter of the fasteners they needed. I believe that is literally the biggest problem with people's aging effects and other health issues. Even if you aren't eating any processed food if you don't eat what you need the body can't work magic without providing it with the amount it truly needs.

[@LorraineCLadish]

Thank you for sharing!!!! Wishing a speedy recovery. I tore my supraspinatus and am trying to be super mindful now that I am better. I stop any movement that gives me pain now. 🌹🌹🌹

[@user-rx8wm8uu4n]

First, I think that you both (Rob and Lorraine) are providing an absolutely wonderful service for those of us interested in retaining strength, etc. as we age. And yes, the shoulder seems to be a weak point, although my own experience suggests a reason for optimism. I began lifting at age 60 with a lot of 5 x 5 with chin ups, dips, machines, etc. I had no real problems for the first seven years, even with relatively high intensity (sets of chin ups and dips with 50 lbs. on the belt). But then shoulder pain set in and I decided I had to eliminate virtually all "push exercises." Things were fine for the next seven years, with shoulder pain only resurfacing once (two years ago, I tried to do 2000 chin ups in seven hours; the shoulder pain stopped me at 1728 in six hours). But early last fall I decided to see what would happen if I reintroduced pull ups, dips, and heavy weight on the push machines. Well -- knock on wood -- I've experienced no shoulder pain so far, even as I do chin ups and dips with a reasonable amount of weight on the belt. I've posted a few 30 - 60 second videos that probably suggest that I'm just asking for it -- but so far so good.

[@jamesstramer5186]

I feel you with the dips. Have cut them out completely. I just do ring push ups and pike push ups nowadays. The movement is just not suited for some people's bodies.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Hmmm... yeah maybe dips are a general problem. On the other hand, I never had a problem with them until recently. Once I get back to working out, I may start doing them again, but probably not deep dips.

[@wojciechswiderski1532]

thanks, mano!

[@rjc90]

Hey mate, just want to wish you a good recovery. I ain't quite up there in years but I do look to you to see what my training can look like in my 50s and I appreciate the cautionary tale. It becomes more important to avoid injury than to push hard for progress Wondering if maybe you should just incorporate more bands into your routine. I certainly hope you don't give up calisthenics all together

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Thanks, I appreciate it! No, I'm not going to give it up. I'm just going to try to figure out how to do it better. I'm going to try to figure out the best way to keep my rotator cuff tendons strong.

[@OliV777]

I also injured my right biceps tendon in 2016 (not a full rupture but still very painful. I’ve subsequently rehabbed it, but often get the pain at the back of my shoulder which I think is due to the instability in the joint, especially after pull-ups. I’ve felt the shifting too, at times. At 41 I love training calisthenics and I would to learn if tendons can be strengthened again after injury. Will be following your journey and wish you a quick recovery with any more years of training to apply and share the wisdom you’ve learned. Thank you for sharing your painful experience for our benefit!

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Thanks! And sorry about your injuries. Shoulders are a pain in the ass!

[@OliV777]

@@The_Aging_Warrior thank you - yes shoulders are unbelievably intricate and complex. All the best with your recovery and may you swiftly regain the ability to do the things you enjoy.

[@LorraineCLadish]

My doctor said that 60% of people over 60 have rotator cuff tears and 80% of people over 80 have tears. I am with you as a lifelong exerciser I agree that age isn’t nothing. We need to adapt our workouts. Thank you so so so much for sharing.

[@LorraineCLadish]

Watched it all and shared it on Instagram. Are you there?

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Yeah, and also “degenerative changes to the labrum”. I had multiple things wrong with both shoulders. I’m actually pretty good now (but still recovering from surgery). I’m not in pain at all. But I think I’ll have to do things very differently from now on.

[@LorraineCLadish]

@@The_Aging_Warrior yeah. I hear you. I meant are you on Instagram lol. Not like I expected you to answer asap. 😭😂 - I am being extra careful w my shoulder. Just sent your video to over 60 friends who have pain and are pushing through!

[@NopeNopeNope.]

Just curious, do you do any mobility and stretching sessions? Or something like yoga? Do you think this would have helped your shoulder issue?

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Good question. I'm not really sure exactly what I was doing when my shoulder pain/injury started last summer. I was still doing physical therapy because of my problems with my other shoulder. I was hanging a lot, and doing my regular workouts which included some stretching. But maybe not so much mobility.

[@franciscogoncalves333]

Francisco do Brasil; tenho 58 anos e faço treino nas argolas. Vi o seu problema do tendão e isso me preocupou bastante. Melhoras para você e muita saúde e que retorne bem aos treinos. Alguns comentários : você colocava gelo após os treinos? Você fazia alongamentos no seu treino ? Vice usa creatina diariamente? Um abraço

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Thanks! And sorry - I can't translate some of your comment. I haven't used ice very much (but I probably should). I don't take creatine, or any other supplement.

[@LeoTaxilFrance]

Thanks for sharing your experience! Unfortunately we learn mainly from our own experience.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Yeah... Still, hopefully someone can learn from my experience.

[@winmediacenter]

Thanks for advices, i also had strange sharp pain in the back of my shoulder when i did deep dips. I started to lean a little bit forward and most importantly keep all my body in full tension and shoulders depressed all the time no matter what, and it helped me a lot. Before my pain started to appear i relaxed at the bottom of the movement to "stretch to full range of motion" and it was a mistake. Keep your body tension all the time with shoulder depressed. I also started to do exercises to strenghten my external rotators because i felt pain in front of my shoulder when i tried to internally rotate my arm with resistance. Face pull on rings is i think the best exercise to feel rear delts plus external rotators. btw. how about your shoulder at the moment? feel any better ? Cheers from Poland :)

[@jeroend1899]

Yes, this exactly. I think dips make shoulders very prone to injury, but since I started to keep tension in my chest, shoulders and core, I feel a lot more comfortable with it.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

And thanks for your advice too. I think I definitely need to do rotator cuff strengthening exercises as part of my normal training. My shoulder is already much better. I'm out of the sling, and working on getting my range of motion back. But it'll be 2 or 3 more months before I can do any real training.

[@franktaubenkraut2217]

#agingwarrior I haven't seen anything from my man lately. I hope all is good.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

I'm doing pretty well - thanks! It might be awhile before I post anything though. I can work out now, but I can't do anything very interesting. Also, I started a new job, and now I'm busy all the time.

[@dvorakgigachad1444]

@@The_Aging_Warrior great to hear! I wish you a good recovery - a 17 year old calisthenics athlete

[@justcuriouseye]

Could your shoulder injury be prevented should you have strengthening exercises on your rhomboids and infraspinatus? I may have missed it, but was there pain on your biceps while you were juggling before it snapped?

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

I wish I knew. I'm sure I could have done lots of things differently. About the pain/injury/juggling: I was in lots of pain while working out for 5 or 6 months before it happened. Juggling did hurt it (especially the morning of the incident). But by that time I was used to being in a lot of pain, so I didn't think anything unusual was going on.

[@defenderoftheadverb]

I understand that if you have a dislocated shoulder once, you remain susceptible to subsequent dislocations. That implies that tendons don't tighten up again. I'm no medical authority though. The only tendon damage I've had is golfer's elbow and it took ages to heal.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Yeah, that does make sense. That was what I was afraid of :)

[@OliV777]

Did you also injure your labrum, or was it only the tendons?

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Both my shoulders also have a lot of labrum damage. But my surgeon told me that almost everybody at my age does. They don't even consider surgery on the labrum for anyone over 30! Unless it's something like a SLAP tear where it's a clear injury, they just call it "age-related degradation".

[@OliV777]

@@The_Aging_Warrior thanks for your reply! That’s super interesting. The shoulder specialist I saw was super vague. Just told me I have a ‘biceps tendon injury’ - not sure if he meant SLAP lesion or not. Might have to get another opinion.

[@sabonacio]

FJ há 12 segundos (editado) it'd make a nice video if you tried for sometime that therapy that reverses aging. You could compare the before/after of cardio rate, skin, idk.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Is there a therapy that reduces aging?

[@sabonacio]

@@The_Aging_Warrior Well... Yes! Not only reduces but also reverse it. They have done to rats. YT must be flooded with stupid content about this now for the hype, but the first video I saw about the subject was in a great scientific channel. kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4PXaH-gpq9na80

[@fleadoggreen9062]

Yes I feel somethin slipping over my shoulder when I do deep push ups , it doesn’t hurt, I seen a dr He said well ur 56 years old so blah blah blah Dr was like 40 years old lol I’m like , wait til u get this old ,I bet u won’t wanna go out to pasture

[@LeoTaxilFrance]

Returned to some of your videos...I really appreciate them. And it is very sad that people like you have to limit your physical activities and disappear from "public" life in this field. Hopefully your health in your shoulder returns.

[@The_Aging_Warrior]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm thinking of getting back to making videos. My main problem now is that I started a new job and I don't have as much time anymore. I might just put out the occasional short video...

[@jimnagel5611]

I LEARNED EARLY ON THAT HEAVIER WEIGHTS WAS NOT FOR ME -- WEIGHTED DIAMOND PUSHUPS - KILLED MY RIGHT ELBOW -- WEIGHTED PULLUPS & DIPS - KILLED A SHOULDER -- LEG EXTENSION KILLED MY RIGHT KNEE -- NOW THE MOST I DO IS 4lbs FOR PUSHUPS - CURLS WITH 20lbs MOST OF THE REST ON A TOTAL GYM XLS -- I LEARNED MY LESSON THE HARD WAY I GUESS -- BUT I'M PRETTY SATISFIED WITH MY LEVEL OF STRENGTH / ENDURANCE AT 55 YEARS OLD - 5'6 & 165 & STAMINA IS STILL THERE