Title should say “loss of strength.”
I’m dealing with it. Curious to hear about other experiences, esp how long it took for strength to return once the pinch nerve was alleviated.
I’ve had it worse two times before but I wasn’t actively lifting then so I didn’t track how long it took for strength to return.
I am still recovering, pretty sure this go around will be a permanent feature.
I had a pretty extreme flare up over the Winter of '15-'16. Took about 3-4 months before I had regained much of my strength once the bulk of the acute symptoms faded. It took a lot longer to get the last bit and get back to making solid gains - feeling great for this last year.
Overhead pressing and pushup variations took the longest to come back, and I still have variations in strength output depending on how I hold my head when doing pushups. I really worked hard to get the power back with my pressing as soon as I felt I could tolerate it - low reps, moderate sets, 3RM.
A lot of overhead still aggravates my symptoms a bit, so I avoid most of the straight overhead work and limit myself to some testing from time to time. Pushups have just been a slog but are coming back nicely. I have to keep my chin up, eyes forward, adds 5-10 reps to each set. I could barely hit with consistency one rep one arm pushup last year, and now can do 8-10.
I will likely never regain full sensation in my right index finger or full strength across both arms especially shoulder dominant lifts - I hope so, but I have no way of knowing. Occasionally I will feel a few percent (estimate) drop in strength in one arm or the other - most often my left arm doing pushups, but sometimes the middle delt on the right when overhead pressing.
I adopted a lot more work to failure when I was first driving to recover as much as possible. There frankly isn't much literature for different training protocols and max nerve recovery/motor unit reassignment (?), but the literature is 100% that resistance training helps.
I'd imagine recovery is based on how long the acute symptoms persist and how severe they become at their worse.