To those who have broken a collar bone + docs/medics/wisemen

Long post. Contains srs concerns. No cliffs.

About... 3(?) years ago I broke my collar bone. I was out of commission for all activities for quite a whole (but still went to play in a mini-soccer tournament 3 weeks after accident). Nothing was done to the collar bone itself because it wasn't going to cause any real problems after recovery. So I was just put in a sling and it would recover how it was set. I could have gone into surgery to have it put in proper place by also adding some metal pieces to keep it stable, but when the pieces would get removed it would take a long time for my bone to be 100%.So I didn't want to at the time.

I have recovered perfectly fine of course. However, because of the way it broke there is still a bump on my collar bone where one end of the broken bone was almost sticking out. And (though less noticeable compared to when first broken) my shoulder is a bit wide on the broken side. At least it gets that effect because it seems my shoulder slouches more down towards the front on the broken side. I also sometimes feel like my shoulder blade on the broken side sticks out more than the other. And that my flexibility on that side is not as good. Nothing critical, but noticable in movements. Shoulder muscles also different on broken side, but may be because my right shoulder is still a bit bigger and stronger than left.

And now what brought all this up. I've been benching quite a bit after starting Bill Starr's 5x5. Just finished 4 weeks yesterday. Over this last week I have noticed that my right (broken collar bone side) of my shoulder would experience more pressure than the other. I'm theorizing that even though the bar is going straight up in a balanced motion, my right (broken collar bone) shoulder and side goes through a bit of a different path. Has anyone experiencd something like this when benching? And that your shoulder, and upper traps will look different on the broken side. It's like I can move my shoulder to be even with the other shoulder, but it won't achieve that potition naturally. I need to move it myself.

Would it be worth considering surgery, putting me out of comission for a long time, in order to fix my collar bone completely? Make it all natural (or as much as possible). Both for injury preventing purposes and to look more balanced (for aesthetics)?




Here is a picture of how my collar bone was basically broken. It's not my exray mind you, but kind of how it broke.

[img]http://www.roadcycling.com/artman2/uploads/1/lance_armstrong_carbon_clavicle_collar-bone-xray_1.jpg[/img]

Just took pictures of how it currently looks like (not x-ray). Will put up later.

[img]http://i41.tinypic.com/1qr9t2.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i41.tinypic.com/312e1br.jpg[/img] [img]http://i39.tinypic.com/35ho4rp.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i41.tinypic.com/687hn9.jpg[/img]

Regarding more surgery and stuff... I'm not a doctor so I'm not going to even try to give advice on that.

However... I'm 29, and broke my collarbone when I was 18. Right now my left side (broken side) is about 90% of my right, when I bench you can see that my left side is weaker then the right. The biggest progress with fixing things came from spending a month doing low weight, high rep exercises. Every other day I did 3 sets of 16 rep exercises to work on my shoulders and elbows.

Machine-
30lb chest fly
40lb seated chest press
30-40lb incline chest press
40lb lat pulldown (to chest)
20-30lb lat pulldown (behind neck)

Very controlled motions, very smooth.

For an idea how bad things were for me, I couldn't carry a bucket of cat litter in the store in my left arm. If it pulled straight down, the supporting muscles in my shoulder basically didn't do a damn thing and my entire arm would go numb and had to drop it. It's embarrassing...

What's more embarrassing is I broke mine looking at a hideous troll of a woman.

[QUOTE=JoshuaNeff;488067701]Regarding more surgery and stuff... I'm not a doctor so I'm not going to even try to give advice on that.

However... I'm 29, and broke my collarbone when I was 18. Right now my left side (broken side) is about 90% of my right, when I bench you can see that my left side is weaker then the right. The biggest progress with fixing things came from spending a month doing low weight, high rep exercises. Every other day I did 3 sets of 16 rep exercises to work on my shoulders and elbows.

Machine-
30lb chest fly
40lb seated chest press
30-40lb incline chest press
40lb lat pulldown (to chest)
20-30lb lat pulldown (behind neck)

Very controlled motions, very smooth.

For an idea how bad things were for me, I couldn't carry a bucket of cat litter in the store in my left arm. If it pulled straight down, the supporting muscles in my shoulder basically didn't do a damn thing and my entire arm would go numb and had to drop it. It's embarrassing...

What's more embarrassing is I broke mine looking at a hideous troll of a woman.[/QUOTE]

My right (broke) side is perfectly strong now though. There are really no differences that I've felt for a long time. However now as I go heavier and am benching more often with my current program I feel my right side acting different than my left. And it sucks having this big bump on one side where the bone sticks out.

But yeah, I know how it is to be super weak on one side. Lifting a glass of water was a mighty task a few weeks after I broke it.

[QUOTE=__Iceman__;488069851]My right (broke) side is perfectly strong now though. There are really no differences that I've felt for a long time. However now as I go heavier and am benching more often with my current program I feel my right side acting different than my left. And it sucks having this big bump on one side where the bone sticks out.

But yeah, I know how it is to be super weak on one side. Lifting a glass of water was a mighty task a few weeks after I broke it.[/QUOTE]



I feel your pain. Almost 10 years ago I had 2 collar bone breaks on the same side within 2-3 years. The first break caused it to just fracture (still in the correct alignment). The second time it pushed the 2 pieces together and caused overlap, which is how it healed. I probably lost about an in of collar bone length on my left side. For years i've been wondering if its the cause of why I cant make any significant gains on bench. For years I was stuck at 225, and only recently I was able to get it up to 240. When I go for a 1RM attempt, I feel like my body is torquing to one side to compensate for the bad side (I get a straining feeling in my lower back when I do my 1RM). My spotters always say that on 1RM attempts it looks as if my bad side is going off on its own track of movement. I'm not sure if it's even worth pursuing offsetting my grip on the bar ( making the left hand wider/narrower than the right). Any input?