Can I do any weight lifting or stretching with a rib strain?

[mkh9]

I am female and 55 years old and weight lift 3-4 times a week. I have a personal master trainer two times a week. I had been using a kettle bell to dead lift 50 lbs and this seemed reasonably light to me plus did, lunges, squats holding a 15 lb kettle bell like a chalice and didn't feel any pain in the ribs or pinching feeling etc. Two days before I did lat pull downs at 60 Lbs, Over head press at 12.5 Lbs, , Bench press and rows at 15 Lbs .These were all light for me but I had not done these for a long time. I had been stressed for a few weeks and also tired. But two days later I got pain in my right ribs and tight around the oblique area and Lats in the back. I thought maybe I just had tight muscles so I went in and my trainer had me do some stretches and used some bands to work out the tight muscles. The next day the muscles were all fine and no soreness or tightness but the ribs had more focused pain. So I decided to take some time off. My trainer says to not take time off to keep doing something but the doctor says it is sore to the touch and to breath in so it is a strain so to do nothing at the gym that is weight bearing, except walk etc. and reach up several times a day until it goes away. Has anyone has strained ribs before? This is actually my second time in a row where I had just recovered from the same thing and rested for a whole month and it took me 2 months to get back to almost normal. Not I have this again. Help!
mkh9

[specialmom]

Hm, I've had what felt like a bruise on ribs before after various work outs.  It's not, it's just a tight something or other.  It's painful.  But I have also had injuries. They are different.  A pain is sharper, if you will verses a muscle strain.  I tend to work through a muscle strain and rest with an injury.  It's been a few days, is it feeling better?

[mkh9]

Specialmom, I tried to go in after having a 4 day weekend and the trainer had me use bands to stretch out the muscles. The muscles around the ribs such as under the ribs and in the back got better but the pain got more focused and sharp in the upper rib area. So I took a break. It has been a weak after that. It is getting better . The first few days I had trouble getting in bed and turning over. A few days ago my husband was driving and turning the car around the corner hurt. Last night I accidently bumped my arm on the ribs and it felt like I got punched in the stomach. This morning I feel better. So it isn't as sharp now as it was. So I don't know if I get so tight that it pulls on the ribs or if when I am lifting something heavy and I am tight and stressed it then puts a strain on the ribs. I also wear a tight sports bra. I try to keep it as loose as possible. But it is one of those with a clasp. My trainer things I am breathing wrong and also stressed and so it had to do with muscles. But it started out with sharp pain and the doctor said when it hurts to touch the ribs it is a strain? Is it always a strain when the ribs are painful to the touch? That was the doctor's guideline. If the muscles are sore it isn't the ribs and if the ribs themselves are sore it is stain in the chest wall she said. But I think if I am better by next week I'll go in. What do you think?
mkh9

[specialmom]

hm, your trainer does not sound trained in medicine.  lol  How can you breath wrong?  Like, for real.  That makes no sense.  Why not just say you probably injured yourself or strained your muscle and he isn't sure?  He seems reluctant to do that and perhaps it is because he's the trainer and it happened under his watch?  I don't know but I wouldn't ask him anymore as he seems highly inaccurate in his assessments of things or like he is minimizing it.  It could be muscular though so I'll give him that.  I did a sit up circuit in a boot camp class several weeks ago.  We did four rounds of a particular kind of sit up.  Honestly, the upper edge of my rib cage hurt like it was broken.  For me, I knew it was muscle pain.  But gosh, it hurt.  For you, I'm not sure because I'm not you.  Things that are known to aid in healing are icing it, ibuprofen, and I've tried WITH success arnica gel on the area and menthol patches (like salon pas).  My son is a track runner and soccer player.  He's been training already outdoors and it's literally 30 degrees out.  COLD.  During warm ups in track, he thought he pulled his groin muscle.  Which can be a huge injury for a soccer player.  He couldn't lift his knee or spring (he's a sprinter in track).  So, he took ibuprofen, put on a menthol patch and iced it through his pants.  Before bed, he put on arnica gel.  I kid you not, completely better the next morning.  I don't know, he's not a cry baby type of kid.  And he was in tears over the groin pain.  He said it felt like he pulled it initially.  ??  I had a calf blow in an exercise class.  It all of a sudden was just like it had snapped. It took three days of those above things and it was better.  

I totally agree to give it a week and if not better get seen.  I'm guessing it will be better!  I had the rib pain for about a week when I strained my upper abdominal muscles.  

Our body is amazing in how it heals itself but we have to protect it too.  Let me know how it goes!

[mkh9]

Thanks. Yeah well the trainer things that when you breath and lift weights you should be using your oblique muscles or breathing with the belly  not shallow breathing with the lungs. He said he had been overtraining the outer muscles and not working the inner ones so I had a muscle imbalance.  But I lifted for 3 years with him breathing wrong and never got a rib strain. He takes a new class then experiments on us. LOL.Granted I had bursitis, and stiff neck a couple of times each. But 4 months ago I hurt my ribs and it took 3 weeks to get better. Now here it is again. It is frustrating. In the first 3 days of the "injury" I did take Ibuprofen. It helped. I haven't tried arnica gel. I can get some of that. My trainer knows anatomy but he doesn't believe in doctors only chiropractors. I don't go to chiro's. I am overdue for a massage though. I did much better with getting those more frequently. I just think he goes up too fast on the weights for me since I have pre-existing conditions. I had a frozen shoulder which is gone but I'm not 100% flexible on that same side. Also, have tendonitis on both wrists, and my shoulders are tight. I have done a lot of competitive tennis over the years and played violin in the orchestra which both caused issues with my shoulders too. So now I'm not as flexible or whatever. He is a master trainer and is certified in myofascial stretching. But because I was badly injured by a physical therapist on my left buttock around the SI joint area from the PT doing ART "therapy" I won't let him do the stretching. I tried it once but it locked my shoulder up after. Sorry to make this so long. I am frustrated right now. Thanks for being there.
mkh9

[Paxiled]

So much of this is confusing.  ART therapy shouldn't cause any pain at all, at least as I know it.  It's just really putting some pressure on a trigger point and then releasing it.  No big involved thing, and you can do it yourself at home with a lacrosse ball or a hard foam roller.  So how did that cause an injury?  I've had a lot of PT, and while I can't say the help did anything permanent for me -- it really seems it helps most by just making you stop whatever you were doing that hurt but doesn't really fix the problem -- I think PT is really for people after surgery -- but they never hurt me, either, so your fear seems unfounded to me.  Also, as I said before, while chiropractors never were able to fix my back, the thing they're supposedly best at, they did fix my ribs whenever I got them mashed sparring, so I'm not sure about your bias there, either.  There are good people and not so good everywhere.  I'm also confused about a rib sprain.  Ribs are bones, not muscles, and I'm not sure how you strain a bone.  The muscles in the area are above and below the rib cage, and the bones connect to the vertebrae to hold us together (I'm no anatomy guy, so don't take this literally, just basic stuff).  So if you're rib hurts, it because you strained the area where the bone meets something else or you cracked the bone a little, which doesn't sound likely given what you were doing, or the bone has gotten misplaced, which is what happened to me but that was from getting thrown or getting punched.  And the breathing thing is something we all know -- there is specific breathing we're supposed to do when we lift, a time to inhale, a time to exhale, and abdominal breathing is much deeper and more relaxing than shallow breathing -- it's the breathing they teach in meditation or yoga.  So all of that is pretty normal stuff.  I also don't know what myofascial stretching is -- that's a form of trigger point massage, as far as I know.  I've got pain everywhere and I've seen orthopedists, physiatrists, chiropractors, and PT up the yin yang, and even personal trainers from a distance because most of them are very poorly trained and I can't afford the good ones.  I've got to say that to me, you probably hurt yourself lifting something that was just too heavy for you or you did it with poor form and, as I said, as we age, healing slows way way down.  And if you get injured enough, as you have been, your movement can become quite unhealthy when exercising because once docs get a hold of you, you're not you anymore -- you're what the docs have rebuilt you as.  I think rest is the answer, and I think what Mom recommended will probably work for you in time.  At least I hope so.  But from here on you're going to have to tough it out more and more because heavy exercise isn't actually good for our bodies -- it's good for our organs.  It's a trade-off.  Best of luck on getting back to it.  Me, I'm so broken I'm at the surgery and cortisone stage and too scared to go there at my age, so be careful out there, it does catch up to you.  

[mkh9]

Paxiled, before I read the rest of you comment, I was injured by the Physical therapist. He was trying to adjust my SI joint and he did the wrong side. That caused a very bad sprain where I already had a strain. So it is not fear it happened it was real, and he apologized. I have had physical therapy since then but not on my back and it was fine. I couldn't lift my leg to walk after that for 2 months.  I personally don't like chiropractors and some people don't like doctors. I am beginning to not like either but we are stuck getting help from someone. Look up things like costocondritis which is a syndrome
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/costochondritis/symptoms-causes/syc-20371175

The chest wall includes the skin, ribs and muscles that surround the ribs. Chest wall pain is usually caused by injury, inflammation or infection of these structures. Common causes for chest wall pain include: muscle strain, chest contusion, and costochondritis."

I see you have been through a lot too. I am resting and am trying to do a combination of trying to get my strength back after being told to sit by doctor for months and that was a big mistake. To being told by a integrative medicine doctor to walk. Which helped but not enough and he couldn't get rid of the pain. To my trainer who actually got rid of my chronic back pain by retraining me to walk right and getting rid of my muscle imbalances and stretching. Now he is trying to get me stronger and work on balance. I think he saved my life. But these set backs do happen and that is why we have these communities to ask if we are on the right course.

Thanks to both of you for your Input.

mkh9

[Paxiled]

Yeah, that's a big problem -- if you rest too long, you lose your fitness and your muscle tone degrades and you basically have to start again from scratch.  Right now I'm seeing a chiropractor who is a sports medicine specialist -- every serious athlete these days, especially those with professional aspirations or who are pros, have a chiropractor or PT who specializes in sports injuries -- but he's left me so confused.  He's trying to limit all the PT I've been given over the years for various injuries but then when I don't do those exercises old injuries start to come back, so obviously the exercises were helping and hurting at the same time as they take hours to do.  He kind of works like your trainer does, trying to get me to move better but first he has to tame the pain, which gets worse when I sleep.  But one thing I have learned from PT and chiropractors is that they really don't want you to stop moving, they just want you to stop doing what hurts.  Doctors, on the other hand, and by this I mean general docs, always say rest.  All in all, although you're having trouble, it sounds like you have someone in your corner with your trainer, and that's a great thing to have.  Just don't lose your instinct so you protect yourself from things that don't sound right to you.  Getting older isn't for the faint of heart.  

[mkh9]

Paxiled, Yes you are right. I don't want to lose too much muscle, but then I am not quite there yet. I tried stretching more yesterday and  I don't feel worse but still feel the ribs hurt to the touch. But I don't it to get works. It is the same my doctor says if you go back too soon you will reinjure she has seen it over and over. My trainer says why rest it is a waste of time. He can work around it. Sorry you are going through this too. I may try to go back with very light workout Tuesday. I'll keep stretching. Thanks. Good luck too.
mkh9

[Paxiled]

I used to get my ribs messed up when sparring in martial arts, but it shouldn't happen with normal weight lifting.  Abs can cause this, because they work this area especially if you're not doing them with the core in perfect posture, and who does that all the time?  To me, from what you describe, it could be anything really -- you're 55 years old, and that means wear and tear adding up plus longer recovery time.  Frankly, personal trainers range from wildly overeducated because they're dancers or physical therapists as well to ridiculously dangerous -- a lot of the exercises you seem them teaching are horrible for the lower back.  I can tell you that when I got hit in the ribs or thrown, my chiropractor just found where the rib was and pushed it back in place and it stopped hurting.  Only thing, actually, a chiropractor has ever been able to fix for me.  I would ask, do you mix any cardio in with the weight lifting?  Do you warm up before starting?  Does any exercise you're doing feel like you're straining, especially in the area where you're hurting and when reaching overhead?  As for the rest, my experience is that strained ribs don't take that long to heal.  But everyone has different pain thresholds in different parts of their bodies.  Also, swinging those kettle balls has always seemed like not only a worthless exercise to me, but a dangerous one as well, but an awful lot of people are doing them nowadays so it must be for some reason.  Resting isn't usually a great option unless you're severely injured or chronically injured because it takes so long to get back to your fitness level, especially as you get older.  Keeping moving in ways that don't hurt the area is probably better.  Another problem is that you don't really know for certain it's the ribs --it could be something else in the same place or radiating from somewhere else, such as the shoulder.  When inflammation or structural problems show their ugly heads it often impinges on a nerve, and that can send pain all over the darned place, which is my problem because of a bad neck and now probably hip problems.  At 65, after a lifetime of basketball and running and martial arts and some weight lifting I'm in constant pain, some of it structural, some of it nerve, most of it mysterious.  So take care not to stress injuries, know the difference between soreness and injury, and try to keep moving if you can in ways that don't affect adversely the injured area so you keep your fitness level and don't stiffen up.

[mkh9]

Paxiled,
Thanks for your response it is helpful. No I don't do cardio only walking and not everyday. I can't run due to my knees having osteoarthritis. And, I didn't feel it when it happened I just woke up with it two days after a heavy workout and a lot of stress. I had tight muscles around the area too but I went back in and worked those out with the trainer and those muscles got better (loose) but the ribs are sore to the touch and got more intensely sore from the workout. The ribs also hurt to bend over or twist. Last time it took 3 weeks to recover when I didn't do anything and 4 months to get back to almost normal weight lifting. Not quite as heavy as I was but close. The Osteopath said it was a rib strain because it hurt to touch. I always stretch for an hour before any work out. I didn't swing the kettle bell just did a deadlift with it. So if it was an injury from the work out it may be from dragging a heavy box to use for the workout or having trouble getting the kettle bell off the rack.
mkh9

[mkh9]

And, no exercise feels like I'm straining. I have been walking but I'll try to do squats or lunges or something for the legs. I did stairs yesterday.
mkh9