Correcting Muscle Atrophy post-surgery.

[dannymax]

About 8 months ago I shattered my elbow in a motorcycle accident. I pretty much lost my tricep completely from undergoing the surgery which resulted in muscle atrophy. Its been about 9 months now and finally regaining strength in my elbow as well some size (Thank G-d for muscle memory) However, my tricep is still a lot smaller than my right tricep.

My question is how should I go about working my tricep(s) out to correct this?

Should I try and lift weight evenly in both arms?
OR
Should I JUST focus on my Left tricep so it'll catch up to my right?

My left tricep is majorly weaker than my right tricep as well, obviously.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

[wildstang]

Originally Posted by dannymax

About 8 months ago I shattered my elbow in a motorcycle accident. I pretty much lost my tricep completely from undergoing the surgery which resulted in muscle atrophy. Its been about 9 months now and finally regaining strength in my elbow as well some size (Thank G-d for muscle memory) However, my tricep is still a lot smaller than my right tricep.

My question is how should I go about working my tricep(s) out to correct this?

Should I try and lift weight evenly in both arms?
OR
Should I JUST focus on my Left tricep so it'll catch up to my right?

My left tricep is majorly weaker than my right tricep as well, obviously.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

i would definitely work in conjunction with your physical therapist on that tricep going under her or his guidlines untill you get the go ahead to pump up the weight. non injured side just work on toning untill the lagging size catches up from hypertrophy training providing you get the go ahead to work it that hard soon.

[pliny_2001]

Don't go easy on the right -- there's some really interesting research out there about how working out only one side of the body leads to significant gains on the other side even though no training was done to it. So train them both (thoroughly).

But I'd still probably do extra work on the injured side. Good luck.

[dannymax]

Wildstang,

My therapist gave me the green light to put full weight bearing on it. The elbow is as healed as its going to get. I shattered it back Dec 15 '07.

So basically, do as much weight that my left tricep (bad one) can handle, on both triceps?

[wildstang]

Originally Posted by dannymax

Wildstang,

My therapist gave me the green light to put full weight bearing on it. The elbow is as healed as its going to get. I shattered it back Dec 15 '07.

So basically, do as much weight that my left tricep (bad one) can handle, on both triceps?

dont slaughter it all at once. first you need reconditioning of the tendons and ligaments before stacking the weight on. if not approached right you will add injury to injury (tendons) if it was my elbow i would go about it like this. 1 to 2 weeks work on higher rep lighter weight to recondition the tendons and ligaments and get more blood flowing into the elbow region. over the next few weeks work up in the weights gradually! even if you feel as if you can handle tons more weight slowly gradually work it back to keep from developing tendonitis and such. 4 me im more concerned with matching body parts ie equal size so i personally will still do both types of workout on both triceps and when able to utilize workouts in tandem with both arms when tolerated in time. wont hurt to train them seperately 4 beginning. first off very important to recondition the injuy with higher rep lower weight for few weeks b4 proceeding heavier.

[ckn]

The trick after coming back from a long-term injury (see my thread about three or four down from this one) is to look to the long game rather than trying for immediate improvements.

Where do you want to be in 6-12 months? How will you do that? Work backwards from that time a month at a time planning where you'll be each month. Doing it that way gives you lots of little goals to hit each month and keeps the morale up.

What I'd strongly recommend is plenty of suppleness training built into your plan. You're going to be putting a lot of pressure on an area that has had little work for a long time so you'll need to have tendons and ligaments that are capable of taking the load. I'd suggest either regular physiotherapy sessions or yoga.

I know that if I'd gone for max-speed recovery to my old shape I'd have failed miserably as my body wouldn't have accepted it and I'd have risked losing it all to a permanent injury. Take your time, do it properly, there are no short-cuts for your body, you only get one of them.