Elbow Pain from Muscle-ups

[Frahebede]

Ok so I learned bar muscle ups in October and then I was stupid and overtrained them and got tendinitis(medial epicondylitis) in both elbows and took about a month to heal.  After that I got back into muscle ups slowly but everytime I do just a few I always get pain in my elbows.  I haven't yet had it as bad as I did the first time but even if I do 5 muscle ups in a day it hurts for about 3-5 days then its fine again.  I took a month off of muscle ups and anything that could strain the elbow and I was fine then but sure enough when I did some muscle ups I get the elbow pain back again.  Its already been about 5 months since I started and taking time off of them doesn't seem to help.  I've been doing lots of prehab for the wrists and elbows and I noticed it isn't quite as bad after muscle ups but the elbow pain is still there.  I have no idea what to do now since its not going away. Thanks

[Karri Kytömaa]

Since you mention bar muscle ups, you are apparently doing them with momentum. This puts far too high forces on tendons that they could easily adapt. Thus you have to work slow controlled movements until you are ready for explosive ones. If you don't have access to rings, you could try slow negative muscle ups and russian dips.

[Daniel Burnham]

Well you need to do rehab. You have created an injury that needs to be fixed. Prehab is a bit different from rehab. For rehab a prescription of higher rep eccentric motions is generally used for this type of injury. You should probably consult a professional. When you do fix the issue please don't try muscle ups again especially in that volume. You shouldn't througj the progressions coach has laid out. For muscle up bare minimum would be a good ring support strong ring dips and strong high pull-ups.

[Christoph Pahl]

Certainly 30% of all climbers have this problem, including me . Negatives are the best you can do...to make it even worse!! In a muscle up (which of course you now shouldn't do for quite some time) you're pulling up very high, so you are overusing the biceps tendon even with an overhand grip.

 

Your way to go now is:

1) Train the brachialis more than the biceps

2) Stretch the biceps more than the brachialis

By this the brachialis will shorten wrt. to the biceps, and the brachialis tendon will be used more, the biceps tendon less. Unfortunately you cannot train or stretch them independently.

For 1) I prefer campusboarding using short pulls, only upwards to avoid negatives. Comparable to rope climbing, but with an overhand grip, so the brachialis is employed more than the biceps. Hammer curls might work to some extent, but are tricky - A straight hammer curl doesn't train the biceps too much, but puts the biceps tendon in a ungood usage. So I turn a bit into an biceps curl position. Sometimes my biceps hurts a bit but the tendon is ok, then I turn into hammer grip or maybe even further. Fiddly.

For 2) I do stretches with a straight arm against the wall -  like pectoralis stretches, but back of the hand aganist the wall. There might exist better exercises, J. Natermann has a video on youtube.  

 

Take this serious, I didn't and tore my biceps once a little bit. Eberhard Gienger or John Gill https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/10805-found-this-interesting-webpage/ broke their biceps completely.

[Aaro Helander]

In the end of last summer I received a semi-serious blow to my forearm near the elbow, which rendered my arm useless for 10 minutes or something.

 

After that followed a period of 6 months where I could basically do any pressing movement without pain, but pressing including a rotational element (muscle up, arm wrestling) caused a long-lasting pain in my elbow. I did a lot of elbow prehab, and was losing hope, but after six months the pain disappeared and haven't had any problems since.

 

Maybe your magical moment will come? B)

 

I would suggest a lot of rubber band work for forearms and elbows

[Klaudius Petrulis]

Find a good rehab person. A muscle-up isn't worth messing up your arms for.

[Christian Bais]

Got my first 3 muscle ups on my very first try and I'm expericing the same pain in both my elbows as Helander expressed in an earlier post. I thought I could skip the progressions considering I'm a pretty decent athlete and had the explosiveness to get my waist above the bar doing a pullup. Maybe the ego got in the way. Thanks for this post. Hopefully the elbow pain goes away soon and I can work through the progressions so I don't experience this type of injury again. this is the first time I've ever felt anything in my elbows. Not a good sign.

[Klaudius Petrulis]

It's an example of trying to run before you walk. You fall flat on your face because you're not used to even walking yet.  It gets better with time. Just take a rest from these movements and take it slowly this time

[Frahebede]

Thanks for everyones help, muscle ups are now completely ok and I have no pain at all doing them. I can now do them everyday without any harm. Also i learned slow bar muscle ups and suprisingly my elbows dont feel anything at all.

[Joshua Naterman]

Thanks for everyones help, muscle ups are now completely ok and I have no pain at all doing them. I can now do them everyday without any harm. Also i learned slow bar muscle ups and suprisingly my elbows dont feel anything at all.

Take it slow, be smart, and good things will follow.

[Fred Mak]

frahebede, what did you do to fix your elbow pain?

[Joshua Slocum]

frahebede, what did you do to fix your elbow pain?

He waited 10 months for the tendons to heal. 

[yosemite]

He waited 10 months for the tendons to heal. 

Sometimes waiting that long isn't acceptable.  My elbow just started hurting recently, it feels like I have developed tennis elbow in my left arm. I can no longer perform any type of bent arm pulling movements, pushing and straight arm movements are fine.  

 

I was taking a couple herbs daily for some time, namely He Shou Wu (Fo-ti) and schisandra berries.  The pain started when I stopped taking He Shou Wu a couple weeks ago.  It seems my body was being overtrained around this time as well.  I ran out of the herb, and didn't realize it may have been warding off symptoms of overtraining, namely my elbow problem that surfaced a week or so after I stopped the herb.   I am 99% sure that if I were to start taking this herb again daily, my elbow pain would disappear in several days.  I cannot afford to stop training right now, and should never have stopped taking this herb.  I will be starting a new thread on tennis elbow and this herb once I start taking it again and see how it treats my elbow without taking anytime off from training.  

 

I didn't see any recent threads on elbow pain, or else I would have posted this in something more recent.  

Edited July 1, 2014 by yosemite

[Mikkel Ravn]

Sometimes waiting that long isn't acceptable.  My elbow just started hurting recently, it feels like I have developed tennis elbow in my left arm. I can no longer perform any type of bent arm pulling movements, pushing and straight arm movements are fine.  

 

I was taking a couple herbs daily for some time, namely He Shou Wu (Fo-ti) and schisandra berries.  The pain started when I stopped taking He Shou Wu a couple weeks ago.  It seems my body was being overtrained around this time as well.  I ran out of the herb, and didn't realize it may have been warding off symptoms of overtraining, namely my elbow problem that surfaced a week or so after I stopped the herb.   I am 99% sure that if I were to start taking this herb again daily, my elbow pain would disappear in several days.  I cannot afford to stop training right now, and should never have stopped taking this herb.  I will be starting a new thread on tennis elbow and this herb once I start taking it again and see how it treats my elbow without taking anytime off from training.  

 

I didn't see any recent threads on elbow pain, or else I would have posted this in something more recent.  

Sedating yourself won't make the injury go away, only the pain. Pain is not only a nuisance, it is also a symptom.

[yosemite]

Sedating yourself won't make the injury go away, only the pain. Pain is not only a nuisance, it is also a symptom.

Sedating yourself?  What do you mean by that?  The herb I mention has a unique effect on the joints, and I am a little confused what you mean by sedating myself?  Surely this is not what this herb is doing, rather it is fortifying muscles, tendons, bones, and joints.

Edited July 1, 2014 by yosemite

[Mikkel Ravn]

I mean that using a herb, supplement, drug or whatever that has an anaesthetic effect only alleviates the symptoms, not the actual injury, thus allowing you to train on, making the injury even worse. I find it extremely hard to believe that there is such a miracle cure for tendonitis.

 

You say that you cannot afford to stop training. I'm willing to bet that you can't afford to not stop, if the injury is bad enough. I've had chronic tendonitis, trust me, you don't want it. The only way to get rid of it was a break of 8 weeks, and then starting over.

[Daniel Burnham]

I mean that using a herb, supplement, drug or whatever that has an anaesthetic effect only alleviates the symptoms, not the actual injury, thus allowing you to train on, making the injury even worse. I find it extremely hard to believe that there is such a miracle cure for tendonitis.

You say that you cannot afford to stop training. I'm willing to bet that you can't afford to not stop, if the injury is bad enough. I've had chronic tendonitis, trust me, you don't want it. The only way to get rid of it was a break of 8 weeks, and then starting over.

These little supplemental tricks only work so long. Just like ravn says. I too have had tendinitis and it took many weeks to recover. You will be stopped eventually. You can either do it now on your terms and prevent further injury or risk a longer term injury and perhaps even permanent damage.

You can't have it both ways. Sorry. I really wish it were possible.

[Mikkel Ravn]

By the way, when I say 'start over', I mean from the beginning, not back to the point where you got injured. Going back to the same exercise that caused the injury, will of course just re-inflame the tendon.