Tennis elbow and GST?

[Jeffrey Fialko]

First of all, hello! I've lurked on this forum for long enough. I've been working my way through some GST progressions for the last year or so, and have been making fairly decent progress, however, my right elbow started acting up maybe a month ago. It's the outside near where I assume tennis elbow occurs. I immediately laid off any back lever progressions (esp after reading here that those should be attempted later that I was trying) as they seemed to be causing the pain. It's better than it was, but I'm not sure if doing straight arm exercises is aggravating it. It feels stiffer when I do those exercises, but I wonder if it's because of the extra blood flow to my arms. Has anyone experienced anything like this?

I should add that I do a lot of drawing with this arm and play guitar, so it could be one of those things in tandem....

Any info or advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Mikkel Ravn]

The wrist exercises in H1 start at a very low level, and work up to a pretty high intensity. They actually condition the entire forearm, including the finger and wrist extensors, which you seem to have trouble with. H1 is worth the investment from that standpoint alone.

[Dennis Yiatras]

I have tennis elbow. It started to slowly aggravate my right arm also doing rc1. But not real bad . I started to chop wood in the fall which really aggravated the situation. I also play guitar and that can aggravate the elbow too especially working on speed so being tense playing guitar is bad for tennis elbow. I do not have h1 but I was doing very easy stretches on my wrists 4 or 5 days a week for 5 mins or so and that was a culprete too.

I purchased a ace wrap that I put on my forearm which helps during activity. I also had to bring f1 down to 3 days a week. Tennis elbow is kinda annoying instead of being in pain. Good luck with it maybe ease up a little during your workouts.

[Mikkel Ravn]

In general, for tendonitis you need to drop activities that cause pain, rest until the pain is more or less gone and then restart building the strength at a MUCH, MUCH lower level.

[Jeffrey Fialko]

So after some experimentation I discovered that doing tuck planches on my parallettes really set it off. Doing them on the floor, however, felt fine. Pulling exercises and front lever work feels fine, and things like ring supports don't seem to directly bother it. What I still don't get is how back lever work (tucks, and German hangs) seemed to be what really messed it up in the first place. I felt the pressure on the back of my elbow more than my biceps, which seems opposite of what I read should happen.... The same goes for supports. I do try to tense my biceps even with arms locked straight.

[Jeffrey Fialko]

So after hours of research on lateral epicondylitis, and much experimentation, I think I narrowed to culprit of my injury. I was trying to progress towards one-arm chins, and I was using a strap to position my non-pulling hand lower than the arm I wanted to train. In doing so, I was pulling the wrist of the non-pulling hand very far back, probably over-loading it.

 

So obviously I haven't been doing any of those.

 

I am curious if anyone here has any insight as to why certain GST elements (mainly straight arm) seem to place stress on the muscles/tendons involved in lateral epicondylitis. For example, planche leans, more so with the fingers pointed towards the feet. They place stress on the elbows (and I have learned to NOT lean too far forward for my current strength level while doing these) but how is it that the wrist extensors are activated or aggravated in this position? I have the same question regarding elements like back levers and ring supports, although in those cases maybe it's purely due to wrist stabilization or a closed grip?

 

I know there are some very informed and educated folks here, so I'm hoping someone has the appropriate anatomical knowledge!

 

Much thanks for any info!