Vinny Galanti
At 8 weeks to go for the Night of Champions, my training was going great, looking better then ever at 230lbs.I was confident I was going to do very well. While putting an 80lb dumbbell back on the rack, I heard and felt a rip in my elbow/forearm area of my left bicep. The pain became very nauseating, and I turned very pale white.
I quickly grabbed my bicep thinking it just rolled up my arm… I thought the worst--I was thinking it tore off the bone. After getting an MRI that afternoon, the news was bad, but not as bad as I thought it could be. I had a partial tear of the bicep tendon, and would not be able to train for at least 4 weeks. I never had an injury while training for a contest, I never backed out of a show before, and so this was a big shock for me.
Usually I go off my diet and stop taking all supplements when a contest is over, I feel I need a breather from the training and strict regimen, but I continued to eat very clean and continued to take the Animal Pak everyday even though I had to take 4 weeks off from the gym. But now that I'm into my first week of very easy training, my condition is very good. It was easy to get a pump this past week, even though I only used 30lbs on the pin loaded preacher. It was nice to train again.
I am very competitive at heart, and taking it easy in the gym is very frustrating for me. I want to get it on, turn it up and train at 100% again.
Turning 40 soon has taught me a few things about training--leave your ego at the door and patience gets you further. I so badly want to train for this year's Nationals where I placed 5th in the Lightheavy weight class last year, my ego and patience are knocking on the door. Since I know better, I will fight the urge and have the bicep heal 100% and train crazy for another day. I am seriously thinking of training for the Masters for next year. I can't believe I'm turning 40 soon; I even have grey hair peeking through.
All jokes aside about age, I have noticed this past year that I need more of a warm up before hitting it hard with my training, I can't attack the weights like I used to. I have found that lifting lighter weights has given me a growth spurt with better conditioning. I will keep you posted on my training style, and progress as I get healthier with my bicep. All you old guys pay attention…
Here is an example of a chest and bicep day before the injury:
Warm up on the bike for 10 min
Warm up with cable crossovers for 5 sets of 10 with light weight
Hammer Incline Bench Press: a 45 and 25lb plate on each side for 15 reps done very slow for 4 sets.
Dumbbell Bench Press: 60lb, 70lb, 80lb, 90lbs for 12 reps each
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press: 70lbs for 3 sets of 12 reps
EZ Bar Curls: 25 and a 10lb plate on each side for 4 sets of 12 reps
Machine Preacher Curls: 60lbs 3 sets for 12 reps
Dumbbell Concentration Curls: 30lbs 3 sets of 12 reps
The key is… Only 45 seconds between each set.
