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It's not torn but it's bloody annoying.

Kind of crept up over a long period but one day doing chins it got really sore so I took a two week break from all exercise's that hurt it.

I'm now back to training but have halfed the weight that I use on any exercise that might strain it so it's holding me back a lot. It's improved a good bit and doesn't hurt at all during exercise apart from curls but it's starting to get me down.

Anyone else had experience of this?

Yes i have. I had to eliminate all flat bench and incline work for chest. Even cable crossovers hurt. Actually any movement where my elbows came forward would hurt.

I could do very high inclines with no pain and any overhead pressing didn't hurt at all.

The only curls i could do were hammer curls with dumbells or a rope/cable setup and reverse curls, elbows jammed into my side. Don't do any curls with the palms facing out.

Even when it starts to get better don't go too wide with your grip on presses. Keep to just outside of shoulder width or closer if it feels comfortable.

How long did it take to get better?

Mine is really slow and still gets very stiff if the arm is held in the bent position for any length of time.

Yes, and it will linger if you strain it further.

If you're doing an exercise and feel the pain in the bicep, STOP the exercise immediately. Don't do that exercise again until the bicep injury is healed. If it was the cause of the injury, substitute another exercise for it. We all have slightly different angles and ranges of motion for our muscles. Different exercises can affect different people in different ways especially if the injury occurred on a machine with a forced angle and range of motion.

Tendons take a long time to heal. I wouldn't expect it to go away in just a couple of weeks. Anti-infammatories (Aspirin, Advil, Aleve) help. Good luck.

I know what you mean but how long do you give it? seems like months now.

Check12 wrote:I know what you mean but how long do you give it? seems like months now.

It totally depends on how bad it is. Months is normal unless you were to give up lifting entirely, which I know you won't. I didn't either. Occasionally, I still feel a twinge if I do something in a certain range of motion. Just be careful and use common sense when it comes to possible re-injury.

I'm not certain the exact nature of your injury, however I injured my left bicep Feb. 2010 and it is still messed up, however I'm at about 80 to 85%. It seriously impacted my workout, however if you don't reduce your workout, you'll make it worse. A friend, that had a similar injury said 2 years for full recovery. (I was forced to take a 3 month break from lifting due to work, I did see improvements afterwards, but not full recovery and I'm not sure any faster than if I had kept working out.)

I injured my bicep on cable curls. I now avoid cable curls, however when I do them, I do really light weights and just go for reps. I tend to do more barbell curls - here I can do more weight, but still no where near what I used to do. I find that doing light weights and large reps makes me feel good and doesn't make the tendon flare up. (I started the low weight high rep based on a recent article by Mark about how max muscle growth lies in some region of reps per body part. I figured what the hell, low weight high reps doesn't hurt my tendon so I stick with it.)

The bicep has hurt my back excersizes the most, rows were too painful for a while. Even now I have to be slow and careful.

It sucks, but it is what it is.