Brachioradialis issues

Hi guys 

I have chronic tenderness in the meaty part of the left brachioradialis near the elbow. 

It came from a non-foundation related occurrence, but the combined work load from Foundation and bouldering keeps it inflamed. Specifically, I believe that heavy pinch gripping with bent elbow irritates the area. 

I have couple of questions:

What is the function of brachioradialis, besides wrist extension?

Which Foundation tracks would you recommend to scale down, to rehab the muscle? 

Brachioradialis is first a primal elbow flexor especially on pronation and neutral grip. this makes sense since during pulling movement there is no wrist extension especially because body suspension forces the wrist to extend. i suggest to rest until pain is gone, then a lot of hammer curl with elastic band.

Thanks Alex. 

The issue arose doing work related wrist extensions for two working days, something that I clearly wasn't prepared for. 

Also try rolling an olymoic barbell over the muscle whilst moving the hand and opening and closing the fist. There is usually alot of trigger points in this muscle as we use it alot.

16 minutes ago, Mark Collins said:

Also try rolling an olymoic barbell over the muscle whilst moving the hand and opening and closing the fist. There is usually alot of trigger points in this muscle as we use it alot.

Thanks Mark. 

Will hammering the muscle with a fist in sheer frustration accomplish the same thing, or would that belong in the stupidity department? :-S 

if it is irritated by wrist work could it be the extensor carpi radialis longus? the are in the same sort of area.  I often get issues there especially when pinching something and extending my wrist  slightly at the same time which i do a lot while climbing.

Hmm, had to Google that. Good point, but I still believe that it's the brachioradialis.

I'm currently sorting out which exercisers irritate the muscle, then cutting out the exercise entirely or scaling back to an earlier PE.

At the moment I can't figure out if the tenderness comes from certain PE's or from self massage. 

Hi Mikkel perform wrist stretch 2 from handstand 1 trying to fully externally rotate the elbow so that the inner elbow is facing forward. do not let the  fingers to move from the beginning position.

In my experience, problematic muscles and especially muscle insertions around that area are often caused by extensor carpi radialis longus and brevis (i.e. the "tennis elbow muscles"). Brachioradialis attaches on the styloid process of the radius and doesn't participate in wrist motions at all. As mentioned above, it flexes the elbow primarily when the forearm is in a semi-pronated position, and also supinates and pronates.

I see. 

The inflammation came from two days of quite intensive tree trimming work, something I'm not really used to do anymore, as I mostly work on project management and business development = desk patrol.

The motion that caused it was from repeated 90 degree rotational lifting of a chainsaw to make horizontal cuts, meaning that the wrist extension muscles took a beating. 

So you're saying that the brachioradialis plays no role in wrist extension? 

Yeah, the insertion is right before the wrist. The muscle belly of the extensor carpi radialis brevis is right below the one for brachioradialis though, so they're very close together. A lesion of that muscle belly is called a "type 4 tennis elbow" in orthopedic medicine. One manual treatment for that one is a transverse friction massage, doing a pinching grip of the entire muscle belly (including brachioradialis).

We rarely extend the wrist without elbow movement. Lifting a chainsaw will definetly work the brachioradialis. Don't be too stressed on what bit if anatomy is the problem. Treat the areas that are tight and full of knots, rest appropriately and gradually build up the loading with your training.

37 minutes ago, Mark Collins said:

We rarely extend the wrist without elbow movement. Lifting a chainsaw will definetly work the brachioradialis. Don't be too stressed on what bit if anatomy is the problem. Treat the areas that are tight and full of knots, rest appropriately and gradually build up the loading with your training.

Excellent advice, Mark.  Thank you.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thanks for the replies guys, I really appreciate it. 

So far it seems like I have to scale back rope climb, sPL and side lever (and a complete rest from bouldering), but can continue with the rest. 

Have just bought front split stretch in addition to middle split, so will focus on lower body mobility for the next while.

Brachioradialis  origin is actually above the humeral condyle area, but the three muscles ECRB, ECRL, and brachioradialis are known as the 'mobile wad'. It is a common tendinosis. If you lock the elbow, fully and maximally pronate the affected forearm, and grasp the opened palm with the other hand (also pronated) so both hands are clasped, and isometrically twist aginst each other for 10 to thirty seconds for multiple sets at varying times throughout the day,  this  can be a good stretch . Repetitive heavy power cleans with a barbell is a common cause of this same syndrome as you have developed.

Hi Mikkel,

knowing you are a climber and now may have some extra time on your hands , let me recommend to you the recent book by Dave MacLeod on climbing injuries, "Make or Break". It's well researched and reads well. For Brachioradialis strain, he says "pain usually takes the form of an annoying, but not debilitating dull ache which is poorly centered around the top of the elbow. If you let it get real bad, it feels more nauseating and persists even once you have stopped the climbing session." As far as treatment is concerned, he says there is not  much research because it is rare, and most often goes away fairly quickly with some rest or reduction of heavy intensity training. He gives some ideas including daily stretching of the muscle (as in the post above) and deep tissue massage over the painful area in the muscle belly. Plus possibly eccentrics if the tendon is involved. Interestingly, he also suggests pushups to balance the muscles around the elbow after assessment by a physio, but I know you are well past the 5x10 pushups he recommends...

Good luck, and keep us posted here...

Excellent input, thanks guys.

Will keep you posted.

As a fellow ex tree worker that's been on desk patrol for most of the past decade I feel your pain!

I've nothing to add on the programming or rehab front but I've found that the one thing that helps me deal with the frustration of injury (and it is almost always extra-curricular activities that cause it!) is keeping daily notes on my progress. Perhaps it only works if you have a data collection OCD as I have with my workout logs but being able to look back at similar issues in the past, seeing the timescales for successful rehab, what helped, what didn't (foam rolling - I'm looking at you) allows me to relax into allowing proper rest while giving me something to focus my attention on. 

FWIW looking back I can see that I had some minor tendon inflammation in my inner right elbow in January this year from pushing longer HS holds too quickly - After ignoring it for a while, I doubled my wrist work, worked some short assisted false grip holds and went to blocks/paralletes for a fortnight. All in all seven weeks from start to finish; but could have been two had I not been so stupid. Won't happen again though!

Hope it clears up quick for you.