Hello all,
I did go to Dr. This morning. Seems I have torn an abdominal muscle. Who knew you could even do that? I am told it will heal but I would NOT be splitting anymore wood this year. What I can say to others so they do not go through what I am going through (because this is horrible) is, When your body gives you the first warning. lISTEN.. I tried to play tough guy(girl) and pretend I was ok and keep working. I even got a second warning and even though I did put on a brace I continued working. If I had just took a few weeks off I might not be in this mess. I am told if I am careful. I might be able to split wood next year. ;(
It could of been worse, so I have a plan for this year. I am getting dad a log splitter. I will just pick up the pieces and stack them.
Take care everyone, and be careful.
Morning! I'm AS's resident PT. Abdominal muscle strain is certainly the most likely diagnosis given the history you describe (prolly rectus abdominus). Sounds like you would have torn (strained) a small part then opened it up a bit better with repeat swings and trying it again before it had healed. RA flexes the trunk forward so it is contracting hard and fast when you swing an axe, and from a stretched position which puts more stress on the muscle. Fear not, however, it will recover and you'll be swinging again. Healing time varies depending on the severity of the injury - ie. how much healing has to happen - but you're looking at a few weeks for a minor strain to perhaps 5-6 weeks or more for a more severe one. Avoiding using the muscle through all that time is not a winning strategy though for reasons I'll get to. There are three phases of healing:
1. Acute inflammation
2. Healing/granulation
3. Remodelling
People only ever talk about inflammation as though it is a bad thing but it has a crucial role to play in that it clears the decks so healing can start. There is a series of chemical steps that ultimately leads to production of a chemical that (among other things) attracts white blood cells that follow this chemical trail like hounds and they infiltrate the tissue and eat any tissue that displays a damage marker. Once the WBCs run out of damaged tissue to eat, they release a chemical that activates fibrocytes in the area to produce new tissue (phase 2, granulation). So inflammation is important and depending on how much tissue has to be removed will take anywhere from 3 days up to a couple of weeks. During this time, gentle movement is fine but vigorous activity is not - and you probably fell foul of this fact, you would have overstressed the tissue before the inflammation had resolved, let alone healing getting underway.
Once you are into your healing/granulation phase, continued avoidance of use of the muscle is undesirable and this is where resting it too long can lead to a poor longer term outcome. New healing tissue doesn't know what its job is. If allowed to form as it feels like, the new tissue will be disorganised - ie. fibres pointing in all different directions - and this will lead to that area being weaker and also likely tighter than the surrounding muscle tissue which has a more parallel arrangement of fibres lined up in the direction in which the muscle contracts. So it is important that as the injury is healing you start to apply stress to the new tissue so it gets the message that it has to form in a certain way to do a certain job. In the earlier stages the tissue will be relatively weak so gentle stress to start with, and gradually increasing over time as it toughens up. Typically you will have the greatest mass of granulation tissue there after about three weeks, after which it is progressively refined down to its final form (phase 3, remodelling). So, how much stress to apply? Typically, if you can produce 2/10 pain (where 0/10 pain is nothing and 10/10 pain is childbirth pain) in the injured bit, you will be challenging the tissue enough for it to respond but not enough to reinjure it and as time passes and it improves, you'll need to work it harder to produce your 2/10 pain.
You want your healing muscle to accommodate a certain range of movement (flexibility) and to be able to contract hard so you need to challenge it in both respects. So I would suggest giving your inflammatory process a couple of weeks from the most recent injury to work its way through then start doing gentle abdominal crunches (not full sit-ups) with just enough vigor to produce 2/10 pain in the injury site. Go easy on the first few until you work out how hard to go. Over time you'll need to push them harder to get your 2/10. Do 1 lot of 10 repetitions, 3-4 times per day. You'll also need to stretch it (gently!) which you can do lying on your front, hands flat under shoulders like you're going to do press ups, then keeping your hips on the floor, push your top half up so you are arching upwards/backwards which will stretch rectus abdominus. Again, go easy until you find the point where you feel it stretch (not hurt) in your injury point, hold for a few seconds then lower down. Again, 10 reps, 3-4 times per day. I would probably do the crunches first, then the stretches.
When crunches no longer produce any pain no matter how hard you do them, you should progress to doing leg lifts (lie on back, lift legs up to point towards the ceiling). You might need to start doing them with the knees bent to start with to produce 2/10 pain but the leg lifts challenge the rectus abdominus in a more stretched position a bit like the downswing with the axe so it's a good progression but again, I wouldn't do this one until crunches are pain free. When you can do leg lifts with the legs straight and you can push right up with your stretches and there are no symptoms in your injury spot, try some gentle axe swings and see how you go.
How's that?