Twelve or so years ago I took up tennis. I got “bit by the bug,” badly. I played every day. If I couldn’t find anyone to hit with, I’d hit the concrete and plywood backboards at Heathwood Park, May’s Park, or Trenholm Park for an hour with my iPod earbuds in my ears. Enter my daughter, Finley Jones, and everything tennis stopped.
Fast forward eight years. I picked up the game again at 45 years old and was ‘bit’ again. It was awesome and I lost around 15 lbs. I was playing five and six days a week and – Pop.
During the first game on a cold Saturday afternoon, I felt and heard a pop in my right arm. It was awful. I told my opponent, “I don’t think I can do this….”
Here’s what’s what; I popped my tendon from the top of my bicep. After a month of worrying about it and looking at my new “Popeye arm” (my right bicep is now considerably bigger than my left), I went to the orthopedic specialist and he said if it were him he wouldn’t repair it. I asked him, “So this is my new arm, in a suit all the way to the casket?” He answered, “That’s your new arm.”
To make me feel better he told me it’s more common than we would think. To make me feel even better he told me Brett Favre and John Elway had the same thing happen during their careers and didn’t repair their arms. Sure enough, this, this, and this.
I asked, why did the bruise (that appeared five days after the incident) appear on the outside of my arm (see pic above) instead of the interior like all of the pics on Google were showing me. His simple answer, “That’s just where the blood settled.” Sure enough, I probably slept on my right side the night before I discovered my new bruise.
Why am I showing a bruise and typing about this? To help those that may experience the same thing and perhaps preventing it from happening at all to anyone who may stumble across this blog.
What’s the lesson? If you’re 40ish or older, stretch, warm up better/longer and learn to use the bigger entities, such as your core and shoulder rather than your elbow and wrist, even if it means breaking habits that have worked well in the past.
I hope to be back out there soon! Ice and ibuprofen are my friends right now.
Thank you!
Franklin Jones
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