possible exercise injury

ozbuc1

ozbuc1

New member
A week ago I woke up with pain in the muscles that surround my rib cage. Since I don't engage in sports I assume the pain was due to exercise. I have taken a week off from lifting and it has improved slightly. So the question is when to get back into it? My plan is to star back on monday if it continues to improve. Also if I feel pain doing a particular exercise either do less or none of that movement till the pain goes away.
So the question is, am I on the right track here or should I plan this out another way.
Thanks in advance for any and all help.
 
Well, in my experience, pain is the body's way of saying 'stop that'.

What I have been finding is many times, it is because the body is out of balance in its power. No, I'm not going to start spouting off some hippy stuff about auras, I'm talking about strength.

What I look at is, for example, these people with fantastic chest development, and back upper backs. Then, when you look at it, their back development in no way seems to match their chest development, so their chest is pulling their back out of whack and causing problems. Same issue with quads vs hamstrings, arms vs shoulders, and so on. When something is getting injured repeatedly, I look at what is the backup, what is the support around it, and what are the opposite muscles. Many times, the problem is there.

Or, it could be just beat up a muscle you're not used to beating up.
 
Thanks for your reply Big D, At this time I believe that is just muscles that haven't been used much are being over worked. I will need to continue and monitor as I go.
 
If it's just DOMS, then you can work through it - maybe lightening up on workouts if it's causing you a lot of pain. If it's more than DOMS, then don't work out - and judge if a trip to a doctor might be in order.
 
As far as I recall from physiology it'll actually go away faster if you do some light workout, if it isn't an actual injury, since the increased blood flow from activating the muscle will just.. make it get better faster. As a general rule of thumb more blood flow to a body part = more happy body part :) So try like.. doing some light work with the muscles, stretching them a little and if it doesn't stop hurting, take a break for a few days and if it still doesn't stop, go see a doc and get a checkup.
 
Thanks to all for your sage advice, tomorrow I will resume my workouts and monitor as I go.
 
Too many people start out doing isolation exercises, ie: using dumb bells, and machines.

If you do compound exercises to train your body, then you should start specializing in isolation once you've reached all the gains you can. Compound exercises build better strength, more muscle, and more weightloss. My routine right now consists only of compound exercises, and it will for the next 6 months. My suggestions:

Squats
dead lifts
bench press
shoulder press
bent over row
calf raises
barbell curls
and some sort of ab exercise.

It will build supporting muscles as well as large muscle groups for when you start moving into an isolation type trainning. Only 3 times a week, and if you want to go to the gym more, only go for cardio.
 
ozbuc said:
A week ago I woke up with pain in the muscles that surround my rib cage.
Click to expand...

What exercise did you perform that was either 1) new or 2) a significant increase in weight or range of motion? The muscles that "surround" (like a sleeve) your rib cage are intercostals and are strongly involved in inhalation/exhalation. There are also the more surface muscles serratus and pectorials, but, usually these pains are identifiable with palpation (touch). If you experience pain (discomfort) with deep breaths (rib cage expansion) intercostals are involved.
 
Again thanks to all for the replies and suggestions. The pain in my ribcage is just a slight nagging reminder now so my workouts are back on track with very little pain.
@ Ronbell I will look up the exercises you mentioned and try to incorporate them.
I am as ignorant as I can be about exercise, When I was diagnosed with diabetes so I went out and bought some dumbbells, look up some exercises on the web and went from there. I am a disabled veteran living on my VA check so I can't afford a gym or a trainer. OK time to push the restart button.
 
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