28 Apr Tucker:MR-why??

Well, I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I kept hoping that I had some instability and weird compensation patterns that just caused all the muscles around my elbow and knee to be inflammed and angry, and that’s what was giving me pain. But after months of having massage appointments, doing rigorous PT work, laying off weights etc… Things are only slightly better. It’s time to bite the bullet and get this stuff checked out and imaged.

On the good end, I’m learning more about the medical community and the price tag of these procedures. I was always under the impression that MRI’s cost thousands of dollars. Not so. Usually insurance places will have contracts with the imaging centers, and lucky in my case it’s only around $250 to get my elbow looked at. If insurance tries to charge an arm and a leg for it, you can just call some imaging centers yourself and request their out of pocket charge for different body parts to get MRI’d, and then you can literally haggle with them to get the price lower (which I did on the phone). My insurances contracted rate is lower than I could haggle anyone down to, so I’ll go with that, but just as a heads up to anyone who’s been putting off an MRI because of price, it’s not that bad.

I should get all scheduled and looked at pretty soon here, but until then, I’ve taken enough time off of lifting. I found that if I put my elbow sleeves on (thank god for Inzer), I can do a pretty decent amount of light pressing and pulling without pain or cracking in the joint. Leg press still bugs my knee, but everything else, including squats is okay, so I’ll be keeping up with the PT to continue working on the weaknesses that I’ve accumulated, but I’ll be lifting regularly again as well. I’m going to split it into upper and lower body days, and I’ll do everything except direct arm work on my upper body day. At least now that I’m getting back to lifting I can still keep working on form, mind muscle connection, and just be active and do what I enjoy.

Upper body –

Warm up with McGill Big 3, as well as some banded side walks, plank variations, dead bugs etc

Machine chest press

Single arm Incline DB press

Machine shoulder press

Rows on a seated shrug machine

Lat pulldown

DB rows

DB side raises

DB rear delt raises

As you can see, there were a bunch of exercises, but since everything was light and I wasn’t pushing hard I didn’t feel wiped out or anything afterwards. I put more machines in there this time than I had before, and overall they were a success, no crazy cracking or popping or pain.

Hopefully I get scheduled for that MRI soon so I can figure out what’s going on in there and have a plan for recovery!

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Tucker Loken

Tucker Loken is a Bodybuilder turned Powerlifter turned Powerbuilder from Eugene, Oregon. He did his first bodybuilding show when he was still in high school, and has been training male and female competitors for shows since 2011. Several years ago he decided to take a step away from his normal routine and learn how to get strong. He worked with Brian for 9 months, added 200 pounds to his raw total and qualified as an Elite lifter in the 220 pound weight class. He returned back to bodybuilding much stronger and now incorporates the 10/20/Life philosophy into his training to keep himself healthy and making continual progress in the Big 3 as well as adding size and shaping his physique. Now part of Team PRS, he brings his unique expertise of nutritional knowledge and how to balance Bodybuilding with Powerlifting to help athletes achieve their best potential.

Latest posts by Tucker Loken (see all)

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• Tucker: Making Do - February 4, 2019