Bicep/Elbow Connection

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on this forum, so I'd first like to thank Coach Sommer for establishing this community and writing his book which has been helping me make incredible progress in my art of Capoeira.

Now for my question: Recently, while training handstands, I got a sharp pain in my bicep right at the connection to the elbow, and its been fairly sore ever since. Are they any recommendations on rehabbing this? Or is this just a overtraining symptom that just needs RICE

Thank you all

That... is a very interesting situation. What exactly were you doing in your handstand training?

How do you know you are feeling pain in the biceps as opposed to some other muscle that attaches nearby? What do you do, specifically, to reproduce the pain and do you actually feel it on the elbow side of the biceps itself or just right there in that area?

Does resisted pronation with a bent or straight elbow reproduce the pain? Use google to search for "resisted pronation" to find videos and descriptions so you can learn how to this (if you don't already know) with both a bent and a straight elbow and, if you try this, tell me what it feels like.

Do biceps curls hurt? Do fingertip pushups hurt? Does a dead hang from the fingers (not the palm of the hand) reproduce any symptoms? What about a dead hang from the palm? Lat pulldown with chin up grip? Chin ups?

Note: Be careful when testing, you are just looking for the slightest hint of symptoms. Don't jump into anything or flex quickly, if you hurt yourself I can not be held liable.

Thank you for your help.

I was training left and right leans in the handstand when the pain occurred.

Pronation has little effect, but supination produces some soreness, but nothing like the initial pain.

Fingertip & wrist pushup had no trigger of pain, and I hesitate to try any pulling movements at the moment.

What I feel right now isnt really pain per se, but more so a soreness and uncomfortability right at the base of the bicep near the elbow.

Thank you for any further assistance you can give

Certainly sounds like you injured the musculotendinous junction. Light curls and chin up grip lat pulldowns are probably your best rehab exercises right now. You should never feel anything more than a 5 out of 10 pain-wise for any rep in rehab, and you shouldn't really go up in weight until you are experiencing a 0-2 on all reps. Concentrating on the eccentric for at least 1 training session per day seems to help with rehab. On other sessions you can have an even tempo but at least once a day try to really spend 4-6 seconds on the eccentric and 1-2s on the concentric.

Thank you very much for your assistance and recommendations. I will likely take the rest of today for rest and begin rehabbing tomorrow.

Thank again, I really appreciate it.