Proximal bicep tear recovery timeline

Writing this up in case anyone else experiences a similar injury and wonders how long it takes to heal before they resume climbing/other physical activities.  My initial research online found people saying it takes 6 months+ to heal well enough to resume climbing which was alarming and a bleak outlook..  Background wise I am 44, have been weight training in gyms for 30 years and climbing for about 6 years.  

9/25/24 – Went to the gym for bouldering.  Stretched a bit then did 6 or 7 V1-V3 warmups back-to-back.  On the last V3 and while holding an overhead undercling I felt/heard some tearing noises in my upper arm so let go and dropped to the ground.  Didn’t really feel any pain just somewhat felt like I needed to stretch my arm so I stretched for a minute or so and realized the arm looked wrong.  I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror and saw my bicep had moved towards my elbow and suspected a bicep tear.  I decided to leave and got in my truck but when I went to move the gearshift with my right arm realized I was unable to do so or really do much of anything with that arm.  At this point I was not sure what to do so I called an Orthopedic doctor I had seen previously to ask them what to do, they responded the next available appointment was over a week away.  I went to an urgent care/emergency room place across the street instead.  They x-rayed the upper arm because they said sometimes a bicep tear may break something in the shoulder and they wanted to look for bone fragments.  Nothing was found other than the bicep tear and they told me to keep the arm wrapped in an Ace bandage a couple days and immobilize it with a sling until seeing an Orthopedic doctor.  Admittedly, the sling came off within an hour and the bandage came off later that night.

9/26/24 – Called around to various Orthopedic doctors to find one that could see me that day because I clearly needed an MRI to figure out the extent of injury.  Eventually found a doctor nearby with availability who confirmed the bicep tear, said it was something that heals to full strength without surgery but wanted an MRI of the rotator cuff/shoulder because that is often damaged at the same time if it gets acutely loaded.  He also confirmed the sling and Ace bandage the urgent care had given me were not useful unless they made it feel better.

9/27/24 – Got MRI done and had to wait till the following Tuesday for results

9/28/24 – Went to the weight gym and was able to workout chest/back mostly pain free with the upper arm in a compression sleeve and really focusing on correct form with minimal bicep activation.

10/1/24 – MRI results came back and all that was torn was the bicep tendon with no other shoulder damage.  Doctor said not to workout or do anything physical involving that arm for a month until the next appointment.  Since I had already been to the gym twice since the injury without pain I decided to keep working out and recovering with other things like bands, FlexBar, etc as I saw fit.

Week 1 – Initially I could workout only with a compression sleeve on the bicep, this included lower body workouts because even picking up a barbell plate to load onto a bar for leg press or squat activates the bicep.  For the first week I could barely do a bicep curl with the air as weight.  

Week 2 – Was able to do a little more weight on various exercises and get up to around 15lb dumbbells for bicep curls comfortably, resumed using the Tension block for finger strength since it caused no pain. 

Week 3 – Went up in weight a little more could comfortably workout with 25lb dumbbells on bicep curls and stopped using the compression sleeve since it no longer felt necessary/the bicep was stable on it’s own.  Climbed/helped bolt a few very moderate slab routes outdoors (5.0-5.6) and had no issue there unless I tried to pull or drill overhead with the injured arm. 

Week 4 – Back to about 70-80% strength across the board in the weight gym for all body parts.  Went to the climbing gym to boulder and did a variety of slab/vertical V1-V4 routes without issue.  Any overhanging routes, underclings, or moves that required activating the right bicep were not possible without pain at the shoulder where the bicep tendon was previously connected.  Shoulder got sore for a couple days after.  Unable to hang from a pullup bar for more than a second or two without pain.

Week 5 – Went roped climbing at the gym and was able to on-site one letter grade below normal without issue.   I had to let go on a harder route because one of the positions caused some shoulder discomfort.  No soreness after climbing.  In the weight gym back to about 90% strength on all exercises.  Ability to hang from a pullup bar for a minute+, do hanging leg raises, or pullups returned to normal pre-injury levels.

Week 6 - pretty much 100% strength some pain in shoulder area remains when doing things like full depth dumbbell bench press but that’s about it