Elbow Injury Prevention

Hey everybody,

I searched the forum, and I couldn't finding anything directly addressing the topic of exercises to prevent elbow injuries. I saw that Coach posted the video on wrist pushups to increase the strength and endurance of your wrists, but I couldn't find anything concerning the elbows. I have seen all these posts from people who have started to do muscle ups and have injured their elbows. I don't want to have the same problem. I saw that slizzardman suggests doing tricep (diamond) pushups for increasing the strength/endurance of your elbows. What else can I do? I want to make my elbows as injury proof as possible.

Thanks!

Having dealt with elbow issues since introducing straight arm work, let me share my experience. There is no way to "exercise the elbow". Since, as you know, the elbow is a joint, any elbow issues are usually issues with the forearm, tricep, and bicep muscles at the point where the insert into the elbow joint. As the muscles approach the joint, we no longer refer to them as muscles, we call them 'tendons'.

Slizz, butt in if I'm screwing up this explanation.

Tennis elbow and golfer's elbow are basically inflammation and overuse injuries of the tendons at the point where they connect to the elbow joint. The only way to prevent them is to get them strong enough to where they can handle the load placed on them without getting fried. Unfortunately, our tendons likely to be behind -- sometimes way behind -- our muscles in terms of their strength. So you may feel like you're doing exercises which barely cause an effort for your tricep muscles. But they may be pushing the tendon to its limit.

The reason why the wrist exercises and grip exercises are so important is because they strengthen the forearm muscles near the elbow. When you have "tennis elbow", the problem is actually because the forearm tendons are fried and can no longer give added shock support to the tricep at its insertion point to the elbow.

The only way you strengthen those tendons is by doing wrist exercises.

Like I said, someone jump in if I'm wrong. I've been dealing with elbow issues because I haven't truly understood what's going on. Now I'm much more mindful of how my extensors are feeling and making sure to massage the heck out of all the soft tissue around there while building up its strength.

J

JmanDetroit said:

Having dealt with elbow issues since introducing straight arm work, let me share my experience. There is no way to "exercise the elbow". Since, as you know, the elbow is a joint, any elbow issues are usually issues with the forearm, tricep, and bicep muscles at the point where the insert into the elbow joint. As the muscles approach the joint, we no longer refer to them as muscles, we call them 'tendons'.

Slizz, butt in if I'm screwing up this explanation.

Tennis elbow and golfer's elbow are basically inflammation and overuse injuries of the tendons at the point where they connect to the elbow joint. The only way to prevent them is to get them strong enough to where they can handle the load placed on them without getting fried. Unfortunately, our tendons likely to be behind -- sometimes way behind -- our muscles in terms of their strength. So you may feel like you're doing exercises which barely cause an effort for your tricep muscles. But they may be pushing the tendon to its limit.

The reason why the wrist exercises and grip exercises are so important is because they strengthen the forearm muscles near the elbow. When you have "tennis elbow", the problem is actually because the forearm tendons are fried and can no longer give added shock support to the tricep at its insertion point to the elbow.

The only way you strengthen those tendons is by doing wrist exercises.

Like I said, someone jump in if I'm wrong. I've been dealing with elbow issues because I haven't truly understood what's going on. Now I'm much more mindful of how my extensors are feeling and making sure to massage the heck out of all the soft tissue around there while building up its strength.

J

Thanks for the reply J!

I've seen the post about the wrist pushups, but are the others wrist exercises that I should be doing as well?

Stretch and massage, stretch and massage...this is an informative and easy-to-ready article. Wrist and forearm strength are so critical to gymnastic work because how much of a beating they take with gripping or supporting our entire bodyweight while trying to prevent hyperextension.

http://drbenkim.com/articles-elbow-tend ... atment.htm

This sucks for me, but I'm starting to feel overuse in forearm extensors, and so I'm gonna back down to one set of the WODs and regress my FSP work until the forearms feel clean again. But better to do it now while it's just minor soreness and not actual "pain".

Have a look at coach's iron cross elbow prep series:

http://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/vi ... rep#p23222

i do reverse curls, wrist curls and reverse wrist curls in my WU and I never hurt myself or injured myself :wink:

Those are great exercises to rotate in.

Thanks everyone! I'll start throwing those in, especially the Elbow series to get ready for Iron Cross Training. I'll make sure to take it really slow.