Elbow recurvatum treatment and prehab

[Francesco Pudda]

Hi all, I've been looking for details or suggestions all around the web (that sometimes has brought me here too) but I haven't found anything specific.

 

I always noted that, when my arms are held straight, my forearm rotates beyond the straight line passing through the shoulder and the elbow, thus I thought I have a slight elbow hyperextension (or cubitus recurvatum). I searched for it in the web but I only found elbows hyperextension caused by injuries, while mine is (probably) genetic since I have never had problems in that area.

 

I seriously started bodyweight training about 4 months ago but I had a decent strenght base due to 3-4 years of lite weight workout. My typical workout was rings support hold, l-sit, rings push-ups, pull-ups, inverted rings rows and dips (+ legs). So as you note I used to workout bent arm strenght (even if I locked elbows out after every reps) except for support position and l-sit. As regards these last ones I always read to keep elbows STRAIGHT, and, at the beginning, I thought that arms straight and elbows locked out meant the same arms position. The fact is that because of my elbow problem those two things didn't coincide for me since if I lock out my elbow, forearms go beyond the arms. When I understood this I started to practice those two exercises with locked elbows, and, regarding l-sit, no relevant problems came out, but, regarding support position, I started to feel discomfort.

 

I always warm-up joints before workout (wrist, elbows and shoulder circles: 40-50 per direction), and then I start with support position followed by l-sit with 2 rest minutes after this. I noted that as I started turning out ring, I started to feel complaint in elbows: it is not pain, but I feel a great pressure on them instead of on biceps. The thing is that this feeling generally disappear during the last two-three sets (I keep the rings 60-70 degree turned out). I don't think that I progressed to quickly because one-two months ago I had tried to keep the rings completely turned out and only after many workouts the discomfort became pain that disappeared the day after. So I decided to restart from the beginning and progressing patiently, but the problem seems to not completely disappear (the problem didn't started after the "injury", I already had it).

 

It's a month that I changed routine from dynamic/concentric excercises to isometric exercises: tuck planche, rings tuck front lever and rings advanced tuck back lever (with support position and l-sit as warm-up). As regards back lever I was able to hold 5x6-7s sets but I had to make a step back when I felt a great discomfort around the epicondyle area: I could hold it with my back but not with my arms, so I came back to the tuck form.

 

I don't know if the two problems are correlated (I think not), and (finally) my question is: are my elbows something to worry about? Will they limit my straight arm strenght in future? There is something that I can do about it? I'm going to practice

prehab exercises every day (1x30 reps 2-4 times a day): are they enough or I can do something else?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

p.s. I'm 18

[Falcon]

1. While doing any straight arm work on the rings, keep the elbows locked and not just straight. This is essential.

2. As your bent arm strength gets better, you might find it easier to get to support position/ring HS/whatever. It's difficult to explain but you will see for yourself.

 

3. Follow steady state cycles on straight arm work, do not increase volume and intesity at the same time.

[Francesco Pudda]

But is this elbow discomfort okay while practice RTO support or should I make a step back untill I feel only pressure on biceps and not on elbows?

[Falcon]

It's okay as far as you don't get tendinopathy.

 

Do something like 2-5 sets of RTO supports (shoot for 60-90s total, so something like 3x30s, or 6x15s, depends what your max is) for at least 2 months, if you won't change the volume and intensity in that timeframe your elbows will adapt.