Bad pull or tear?

ok so im trying to figure out what i did to my tricep. it seems to be in the orgin area of the long head, although i feel it in the upper armpit more on the humeral side than the scapular side. when i raise my arm over my head and then extend at the elbow to full extension is when i feel the pain the most, but jsut extendeing my upper arm overhead brings the pain too. it has gotten better, probably about 25% of the pain now that it used to be, but i still cant workout on it.

it has been this way for about 4 weeks, the pain appeared one day when i woke up after haveing done a good chest workout the day before after which i had to help a freind (chick) move and i carried a lot of probably too heavy stuff by myself and also was dragging an overloaded dolly up and down stairs for a few hours.

another pertinenent detail is i have been benching 'big' for the last few months, probably should have taken a week or two off the big weights but once i started using 315 in my working sets i became addicted to it.

im hoping this is a bad pull and not a tear, as i dont have medical insurance and sure as hell cant get an MRI.

anyone have any insight or similiar experience?

thanks team.

if its a tear you tend to get alot of bruising around the muscle and it swells alot, i think what you have done is pulled a muscle.

From what you have written it sounds like it could also be your lat attachment. Is the pain greater or smaller when you allow your upper arm to move as in a lat pulldown exercise?

i did back yesterday, and i still did my pullups although only with bodyweight, and when i get to the top of the pull up i can feel the injured spot but it is not the pain i get when i do something that uses tricep. doing bent rows, no pain. i did some of those hammer strength horizontal rows, and no pain really there either, and i used a decent weight.

about two weeks ago i decided i needed to do some chest since im shrinking already (lost 5-10 pounds) and i did some hammer strength incline presses with 3 plates per side (3 sets, went 1 then 2 then 3 plates) and the injury hurt, but not bad. then i went to another horizontal press hammer strength machine and after a few reps i stopped because the pain was crazy intense and i think i damaged it a bit more. i can do flys without much pain though if do textbook form.

two days ago i was sitting on the couch and i had to get up really fast (dont ask) and i sort of launched myself up using the arm of the couch, so like a dip kind of, and the injury was on fire just from that vigorous movement.

if i just stand and do an air tricep press down and flex the muscle, it hurts pretty good. although like i mentioned it is getting better a bit, it just seems like in 4 weeks it should be healed. then again im 30 so not as young as i once was.

its my left arm, if you grab your tricep from underneath right next to the armpit (1-2 inches from armpit) thats pretty much where the pain is. it seems like it might be the tendonous attachment but i cant be sure of course.

thanks for the responses guys.

could be a pull. maybe tricep, maybe lat, etc..something that is running over the shoulder there. If it were a tear, as stated, you would probably see some bruising also, your ROM would possibly be reduced.

I should be healed in 4 weeks time IF you took the proper time off, iced, rested, etc....Instead, you kept on pushing it and so it is either taking longer, no healing properly, or not healing at all. Why not take a week off? Let it rest.

What should u do to help heal a muscle pull?

That would depend on the grade of the injury. You could just take a day off, may need more.

What type of pain is it..sharp, burning ect????
And if its a muscle tear you don't always get bruising ( esp if its a minor tear then you probably will not get any bruising) so don't go by that logic when trying to figure what it is.

the pain was very bad, and i did take two weeks off initially before the aforementioned small chest workout. in the last 4 weeks i only lifted twice, because i was losing mass and i hate that. i guess i take another week and see how it goes.

kind of hard to describe the pain, as i elevated my humerus away from the body it would feel like the ligament near the origin point of the tricep long head didnt want to expand, and it was tearing open or something as i forced it to stretch.

actually today i feel quite a bit better, but i will still take the rest of this week off at least.

thanks for the responses guys.