My joint prehab program.

I've been doing gymnastic style workouts for a while now and think it's great. However one thing I've felt is the enormous stress it puts, unlike any other sport I've done, on my joints. From reading the forum I've noticed that a lot of people suffer from injuries to joints especially wrists, elbows and shoulders. To try and prevent this for myself I'm designing my own program to try and minimise the risks.

Moves from the following list will be making up my basic warmup for my next SSC which will be very similar to the Killroy70 template. I haven't decided yet how best to incorporate these moves but I think I will do the basic warmup (60 plank, reverse plank etc) and then alternate which joint I work each workout. Generally I will be working up to doing 60 second holds of each.

For wrists:

As well as the basic wrist warmup

planche leans with hands facing forwards (progress onto 60 sec frogstand hold)

10 x wrist rollers (not sure of the name for this but you will need a cylinder of wood which you tie a rope around and put a weight on the end of the rope, you then hold the cylinder out in front of you and roll the roller around so that the rope wraps around the cylinder, will try and find pictures/video of this, easy to make with a wooden rolling pin)(edit: video showing the basic concept

For elbows:

planche lean with hands facing backwards

german hangs

dead hangs with chin up grip

handstand with bent elbows

For shoulders:

As well as Ido's shoulder routine http://idoportal.blogspot.com/2009/07/s ... ences.html

10 x hindu pushups

10 x typewriter pushups

handstand shrugs

arch hold

For lower back:

10 x bridge wall walks

10 x Headstand leg raises (In a head stand lower your legs to 90 degrees, so that you are in a inverted pike and then lift back up to a headstand).

planks on elbows (work up to 3 minutes for these)

hollow hold

I haven't included anything for hips or legs as I haven't done any research into this yet (I'm laying off lower body training for a while). Hopefully doing this should minimise injury risks until liquid steel™ becomes available. If anyone has and comments, criticisms or anything to add please let me know.

hey i was wondering, how long should i do a joint prehab program so i can start the actual workouts?

i'm one of those people you mentioned, and for coincidence, I was also designing a prehab program, so I really like this tread!

Wrists:

- First Knucke and wrist pushups!

- I used to to "assisted" adv frog stands, controling the weight I put on my hands with the feet on something. Kinda similar to your planche lean with hands forward

- Also, do these wrist roller things replace wrist curling and extension??? Slizzardman also has a good video on these. http://www.youtube.com/user/slizzardman

Elbows:

- German Hangs are heavy on elbows! And are also shoulder prehab. It should be prehab for elbows if you're already very well conditioned, IMO. You can always do them assisted.

- Handstand with bent elbows, how exactly are these?

- One cool thing: Band assisted Muscle ups on rings. You can really work the transition and slowly condition the part of the elbow near the triceps. The assistance must be big for this to be a prehab. I use those cirurgical elastics. Similar effect you get with diamond pushups

- XR support holds

- Reverse pushups static holds, I feel these work the wrists and elbows, should be a prehab, I guess.

Shoulders:

- Ido has another video with a lot other prehab exercises.

- I like to do cross and inv cross pulling move with elastic. Not on rings, but elastic on your feet or on a bar, and pull with straight arms.

- How are typewriter pushups?

- Wall extensions too!

Nothing to add for lower back. Just to say, learn how to stretch correctly to avoid problems.

One final thing, I took too long to realize that an exercise can be either a prehab or a joint desctructor, depending on your current conditioning level. You need to do things not too close to your limit, especially things that are hard on joints.

Anxious to get my hands on Liquid Steel™!

Hey sdotcurry,

I'm currently doing the joint prehab just after my warmup with the extra stuff from the WODs added on after the main workout. Joint prehab is an ongoing thing that you should always do, even the strongest and best conditioned athletes do loads. I think unless you have very weak joints then you should be ok to start with the basics (pushups on the floor, pb support holds etc, if you have trouble with these then do easier verisions)

Hey Leandro,

Thats pretty cool that you were thinking along the same lines. Can't believe I forgot to put knuckle pushups... and wall extensions! Good call on those, there some of the best prehab I've done.

Yeah a lot of the moves do work more than just the one joint, I tried to put them in the category that I thought worked them the most.

The handstands with bent elbows: Kick into a handstand, I do these aginst a wall, then bend your elbows a little and hold. Not sure if these are very effective but at least the will increase my handstanding ability.

I really like the idea with the muscle up, going to have to give that a go. I think the cross with the elastic also sounds like it would be really effective.

Typewriter push ups: Like a hindu pushup but you go side to side. So start in a reagular push up position, move your body to the right so that you are over your right arm, lower down, move your body across so that you are over your left arm, push up, move your body back to the beginning position. Remember to do them in both directions.

You could also do a horizontal pulling and pull up version (a good way to work up to one arm chins I think)

That's very true, always take it real slow with joint prehab, the worst you should feel is mild discomfort, not pain! Also joints take a long time to condition so make sure you only move onto a harder variation after 6 weeks or so of doing the easier version, with the last few weeks feeling really easy on the joint.

Spinelli!

Thanks for the clear ups!

Pretty cool the typewriter stuff. I've seen videos on you tube of the pull up variations. I'm probably not conditioned enough for these now, but they seem to be great for going beyond simple pull up strenght!

I wish I had your preventing mentality when I started. I had shoulder and elbow issues due to training too hard. Shoulder is ok it was nothing too bad thank god, and elbows are just recovering from probably tennis/golfer elbow, from 2 months ago. I also have a sprained ankle that don't want to heal 100% it's been already 1 year, and lower back pain that eletro acupuncture seem to have cured. If I had this mentality from the begining, I'm pretty sure I could be holding straddle planche right now and other cool stuff. So I need to take prehab very seriousy from now and have the self controll to not push myself too hard on heavy stuff.

Glad I could be of help.

I know quite a lot of people who haven't taken care of themselves playing rugby or doing scrambling and now have seriously bad issues with shoulders, knees etc which require surgery and are probably never going to completely heal.

That really sucks about all your injuries. Have you had any of them looked at by a professional? The ankle sprain in particular sounds really bad, I found (although my ankle injury was just a overuse one and very slight, so please don't take what I say here as gospel) that slowly rotating my ankle around in circles really helped, do it with no weight first, just moving your ankle through its full ROM. If that seems to help you can add pressure by doing them standing on the other leg and resting your toes on the floor letting a little of your body weight go on the leg your working.

Thanks!

Actually the elbow issue is the only one I haven't sought medical help.

The ankle was a terrible sprain that did a complete rupture of two ligaments, one year ago. I was aparently recovered after phisiotherapy, but I probably returned too hard and it's not ok yet. I must avoid impact, no jumping or running for some time.

Shoulder was anoying pains ever since I started gymnastics. But now it seems ok, I did an exam I don't know the name in english, (Arthro RMI???) and the only thing it showed was a possible, begining, bursitis. I have no pain now and focusing on prehab so it's ok I guess.

Lower back was pain and discomfort that I always ignored, that are very older than my gymnastic training. I have postural problems, osteoarthrosis and maybe a light disc protrusion. Eletro acupuncture seem to take all my pain away, so I'm not worried too much and focusing on stretching with good form and watching posture. Today I'm with absolutely no symptoms.

Finally, the elbows. They started to hurt the day I overdid GH and BL and reverse MU work. I did a lot more than prescribed in the wods, because I was exited with the reverse MU to be a cool biceps exercise. Result = two months of rest. Probably lateral or medial epicondylitis. There are a lot of stuff on how to treat it here on this forum and on internet and also the eletro acupuncture helped a bit too. I'm right now on my first days of zero pain. Monday I will restart strenght work gradually.

So I needed to went through all this to change my mentality. At least I have no permanent damage. The ankle ligaments have been restored and I won't be a professional tumbler so it's ok. I'm 32, I have to take care of my body to be healthy in the years to come, and I also hope to achieve some cool gymnastic stuff too.

Just as a note for anyone interested in how my prehab is going, I've found that hindu pushups/horizontal pulls are a great shoulder exercise, combine those with Ido's scapular routine and some wall extensions and your onto a good thing. Doing wonders for my shoulder problems just got to watch my posture during the day and give it time now.