Why surgery for a pectoral tear? WWE fighter Triple H is recovering after chest injury.

WWE wrestler Triple H suffered a pectoral tear during a pay-per-view show in Saudi Arabia last week and, despite the injury, managed to finish the match. The 49-year-old wrestler shared a photo of the injury on Twitter Tuesday before going into surgery, and it looks pretty serious:

The wrestler later shared an update on Twitter that he was out of surgery and said that “all is well” before adding, “road to recovery starts … NOW.”

A pectoral tear looks like a pretty major injury, and it is, Brian Schulz, MD, orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “It’s painful,” he says.

A pectoral tear is a tear of the pectoralis major muscle, which is “the big muscle in the front of the chest,” Schultz explains. “Usually the tendon tears off of the bone, but you can also have a tear where the bone and muscle meet.”

Symptoms include intense pain, a lot of bruising, and an obvious chest deformity. “A lot of times, it’s such a big muscle that the person will feel it tear,” Schultz says. “The muscle will also often move toward the center of the chest because it isn’t attached anymore.”

Anyone is at risk of suffering a pectoral tear, but it’s more common in people in their 30s to 60s. “It’s usually due to repetitive trauma and chronic changes in the tendon — something finally happens where the tendon doesn’t have the strength to hold on anymore,” Schultz says. However, he adds, “if there is enough force, it can happen in a completely healthy tendon.”

“You feel a pop, and there’s lots of bruising,” Brian Grawe, MD, assistant professor of orthopedics and sports medicine at UC Health, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “Typically the bruising is a tell-tale sign that someone has torn their pectoralis muscle.” Athletes and weight lifters with large pectoralis major muscles also tend to be at a higher risk for this injury, Grawe says. “The muscle gets so big from weight lifting that it isn’t able to handle the strength and it rips off of the bone.”

Pectoral tears are usually treated surgically. “Because the tendon is a nice, strong tissue, you can fix it back down to the bone and regain strength,” Schulz says. But the recovery is quite challenging. “Getting the tendon to heal back to the bone, you’re looking at three months of not using the muscle and another three months of strengthening again,” Schulz says. During the initial recovery period, a patient is allowed to do everyday lifting but is urged to avoid exercises that tax the muscle like push-ups. Overall, the total time until someone can be “completely normal” can be anywhere from nine months to a year, Schulz says.

Looks like Triple H has a long recovery period ahead of him.

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