How to Treat a Torn Pectoral Muscle

Video Transcript

RUSS PAINE: So we're talking about pectoralis major or pec muscle injuries. This is a pretty debilitating injury. Once you have a pec muscle tear, it's very difficult to get back to your original strength, and many times these injuries have to be surgically repaired. So you can see here this is sort of what one would look like if you have a pec major tear. You know the pectoralis major muscle inserts in over into your arm bone here and if you tear that muscle, typically it will tear away from the bone. Now, sometimes the other thing that can happen is you can have your shoulder dislocate in this position also and you can tear the anterior capsule and structures of the shoulder. So this is sort of a scenario. And this is just blood that's travelled down to your arms, so the bruising is from the actual pec major tear and that probably has to be fixed in that scenario. So you can see the pectoralis major muscle again is the muscle that everyone wants to exercise because you can see it in the mirror. Okay? But you have to be careful if you have a pec major injury. Again, make sure you seek medical attention for this particular injury. I think it's good to get someone to look at your injury and make sure it doesn't need to be surgically repaired because it will not get better indeed if you torn the tendon away from the bone. So again, what can happen is when you're doing a bench-press maneuver or chest flies, as you can get in this farly extended position, you come into a horizontally adducted position, that clavicular portion--oh, I'm sorry--the portion of the pec, the horizontally-directed force can tear the pec major tendon away from the bone and has to be repaired. And you want to make sure that the anterior capsule, the structures of the shoulder is still intact. So initially, obviously, if you have a pec major injury where you feel a pull in your chest, you should apply ice to that area and I think you should seek medical attention in this case.