Elbows and the tendonitis club

Seeing as many folks seem to suffer from tendonitis from time to time I was thinking it would be useful to have a go to thread for advice and treatment that others have used to get over it. I have recently had (and am still having) problems with my elbow, just a dull ache and some twinges here and there so I have backed off on any training that involves elbow involvement.

I never went crazy like some others have in trying to run before they could walk in regards to progressions and following the 60 seconds before the next progression rule but maybe the volume of push and pull work has just caught up with me and now my elbows are taking exception to it :cry: Anyway there is no point feeling crap about it just have to get on with it and let it heal.

So if anybody has useful links, tips, pre-hab/re-hab then please post it here and hopefully we can get a thread full of resources for use now and in the future when our elbows decide to give in for a bit.

What I have learned so far:

1)Rest, rest, rest

2)Self massage of muscles in forearm, biceps, triceps, any muscles that cross elbow, supraspinatus seems to help me.

3)Steven Low article helps understanding http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2009/08/on-tendonitis/

4)Stretch forearm muscles

5)Ease back into training gradually, if there is any pain/disomfort STOP.

p.s if mods would like this elsewhere or dont agree with it then its fine with me. Just think it would be a useful resource to refer to for a common problem.

I'm having pain in the elbow its been two weeks, probably tendonitis, but I'm seeing it from a positive side, it led me change my mind about my body and injuries. Training with an injury free mentality is essential.

One thing that seem to help me a lot, it's a little weird, but It's straight from my chiropractor, you put Coarse salt and vinegar in the area thats hurting, wrap it with band and maybe cotton, and go sleep with it. I did it 3 times and everytime I woke up with less pain than at night. He says salt and vinegar are natural antiinflamatories and they keep acting at night, kind of "sucking" the inflamation.

4)Stretch forearm muscles

What's been very crucial for me was to become intimately familiar with how the forearm muscles are related to tendonitis. Tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) can come from overuse on one of several muscles. When you are experiencing that soreness in the elbow, you need to find which muscle or muscles are causing the soreness.

Right now, my ECU is the one which is most tender...that's the muscle which connects my little finger to the elbow. It contracts when my palm faces down and I lift my little finger toward me. Knowing that is very important because it's allowed me to learn how to really stretch that specific tendon (as compared to just stretching my forearms.) The ECU also engages when my hand is on a flat plane and i "tilt" my hand, so my little finger comes closer to my body. (Adduction?)

So in order to really stretch it, I can flex my wrist, and rotate the wrist so my palms are facing up. The to really stretch it, stay in that position while doing the opposite of adduction...bringing your thumb closer to your body while maintaining the plane of the wrist. You'll feel a really nice stretch focused on the ECU.

To do trigger point therapy on the ECU...do the opposite...start palms down, extend the back of your hand toward your body, adduct the wrist and feel the ECU engage. Now start massaging it! To fight elbow soreness, you need to really know your stuff. I think the ECU, the supinator muscle, and one or two others are the ones which cause tennis elbow.

Stretch, massage, and strengthen them to make sure they don't get injured!

you need to find which muscle or muscles are causing the soreness

I've tried to pinpoint the cause of my problem but my pain seems to move around from day to day. Sometimes it is right at the elbow joint, sometimes at the tendons both bicep/triceps and sometimes its on my forearm. Considering I cant pinpoint a specific area I have just been massaging all muscles of the forearm, then bicep and triceps and then the two major muscles which cross the elbow the brachialis and brachioradialis. I had been doing exercise which didnt aggrevate the elbow but have now just decided to take a full break from any arm/upper body work and just do core/legs and conditioning until this clears up.

Its frustrating not being able to do the ring workouts and knowing your losing strength that took time and hard work to build up but its better to be injury free.

Its frustrating not being able to do the ring workouts and knowing your losing strength that took time and hard work to build up but its better to be injury free.

2 weeks of rest is not going to cost you any real strength. Really. I'll tell you what will cost you some strength...2 weeks on, 5 days off, 1 week on, 1 week off, 1 week on, 2 weeks off, going back to full blast for 2 weeks...then taking another week off, etc.

Get the soreness clear. Start at 20% volume, add 10% a week, and strengthen all the forearm muscles.

J

p.s. don't think you need to stop upper body completely...do pushups exacerbate it? jumping pullups?

I actually havn't been training upper body much since 22 Jan but was still doing things like push ups, burpees etc as I never felt any pain or discomfort but my elbow never seemed to get better. 22 Jan was when I noticed the ache becoming more persistent and so I stopped anything directly causing the issue. That is why now I have decided to stop upper body stuff all together and see if it goes away. I will still stretch, massage and maybe start some rehab stuff but no more than that until it goes away. Im hoping that I wont lose too much strength or if I do I will be able to get it back quite quickly when full training begins again.

I was also one that had problems flare up in the elbow where the Tricep inserts into the elbow. what I did to clear this up was as follows:

1. Self Massage using very hard round balls on my Triceps, Biceps, and forearms.

2. Stopped all dynamic pressing movements for 3 weeks. Yes I still did static holds but I decreased the time by 50%.

3. Used a band under my foot and performed 3x10 in single sets throughout the day for the 2nd and 3rd week for tricep extensions over my head. Maybe 3-4x per week.

4. In the third week I started doing 3x5 Pushups in single sets throughout the day 4x per week.

5. I'm in my 5th week and I just started Dips again. I did 2x2 with full ROM using a 10 second rep just to make sure there was no feeling of pain anyway and no stressing the tendon.

I've done the dips for two days and feel absolutely no irritation any longer. I am still taking it slow as I used to do 3x10 full rom dips but I want to make sure this doesn't happen again. At the same time I ALWAYS massage, foam roll, and use slow reps so I can verify that I am not stressing my tendons with too much work.

We'll see where this goes in the months to come.

EDIT: I also started the wrist series on this site and stretching of my forearms as mentioned above in the first week of recovery.

I was also one that had problems flare up in the elbow where the Tricep inserts into the elbow.

I have this too. Russian Dips have helped. I do them with partial ROM. I'll up the progression when once I've been doing it 30 days or any irritation/twinging is gone...whichever is later.

russian dips 50% ROM, feet on box

russian dips 75% ROM, feet on box

russian dips 100% ROM, feet on box

move onto unassisted russian dips from there...

J

I injured my right elbow almost 3 weeks ago now and I've found that any type of weighted wrist curl helps tremendously. Aside from that I almost entirely stayed off my upper body for 2 weeks and I noticed improvements. I just used it as an excuse to go outside and run or sprint or jump or do some plyometrics or focus more on leg strength. I did the slightest bit of FSPs at the end of last week, and this week I've done a bit more, but I'm at maybe 1/8th of the total work that I would normally do. I've noticed this week that I can do a little bit of PPPs and front lever - tuck pullups without pain, if I only do 1 light set of each.

I've learned a valuable lesson from this experience, and in the future I'm going to include more joint prehab and focus more on holding easier variations of the FSPs for long periods of time.

I'm gonna try to streamline the tendonitis article towards bodyweight strength progressions within the near future for the ebook. Will focus more on a lot of these types of things specific to bodyweight strength.

Glad that the article is helping people though.

Stretching and Strengthening

Since Tennis Elbow is the bane of my existence...few other things I'd like to share.

(1) If Tennis Elbow is showing up for you, you must, must, must know how to stretch the supinator muscles and the extensor muscles. I found a great write-up here on how to stretch the specific muscles in your forearm. http://coachr880.com/id138.html

Also, supinator overuse is supposedly the primary cause of Tennis Elbow. Make sure to stretch it all the time. I found the best way to stretch this is with your wrist flexed, elbow fully straightened, hold the wrist stationary and attempt to pronate your forearms against a resisted wrist. (To pronate is to rotate inward, left forearm clockwise and your right forearm counter-clockwise.)

(2) Know what flares up tennis elbow...

Any exercise with your hands flat on the floor puts stress on your extensors. Handstands, L-Sit Walks, etc. If you have tennis elbow, these exercises are a no-no.

Gripping exercises put stress on your extensors. Rope climbs, any ring work where you're holding on for more than a few seconds, pull-ups can all force you to squeeze your hands around an object, which stresses the extensors.

Straight arm work with an underhand grip. Holding a chin up grip from a bar with straight arms forces you to unnaturally supinate your forearms against resistance while supporting your bodyweight. Lots of stress on the supinator

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If you have tendontis, rest those muscles. When pain is gone, gradually strengthen them. Anyone else care to add anything?

J