Advertisement

Justin Hartley Says 'I Tore My Bicep Off My Arm' During Quarantine Workout: 'It Was Nasty'

Michael Rozman/Warner Bros. Justin Hartley, Ellen DeGeneres

Justin Hartley's time in quarantine did not go as planned.

While appearing on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Tuesday, the 43-year-old This Is Us star recalled the muscle injury he sustained while working out at his home gym during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. (In June, he was spotted wearing an arm sling and cast in Los Angeles.)

"It was in March, I think, when the lockdown happened, and so I thought, 'well I'll enjoy my home and instead of being lazy, I'll just work out a lot and read and I'll learn an instrument and a foreign language,' " Hartley recalled to host Ellen DeGeneres, adding that he "didn't do any of those things."

"I was working out and I ended up doing something kind of ridiculous," he said. "I tore my bicep off my arm. It was nasty."

"The tendon that holds it to the bone came off. It sounded like if someone just ripped your shirt. It was bad," he said.

Justin Hartley

RELATED: Justin Hartley Says He's 'Happy with His Personal Life' Nearly 1 Year After Chrishell Stause Divorce

DeGeneres asked what exercise he was doing specifically at the time, and Hartley said, "It was something that I shouldn't have done. It was a curl, like a bicep curl, but I think I jerked the weight, or maybe it was too much weight for me or something."

"I think I was in shock," Hartley recalled feeling immediately after the injury, "but it felt like ... the way I would describe it is, I stopped, because I heard it, it was an awful sound, and then I felt like a little grain of sand right here. And then it turned into a pea and then a marble and a golf ball and then a tennis ball and then a softball and then a watermelon. It just kept feeling like it was huge, like a human head was in there."

Michael Buckner/Variety/Shutterstock Justin Hartley

RELATED: Justin Hartley's Ex-Wife Lindsay Korman Defends Him as 'Solid Man' After Chrishell Stause Breakup

The father of one underwent surgery to fix the bicep tear, recalling, "They were literally able to grab the tendon and pull it out of my arm. They showed it to me, it's pretty disgusting."

Hartley said his recovery period took around three months, "I'm like 95 percent right now, it's just a little tight, but I'll be okay. I'm lifting weights again and everything, so it's fine."