I recently injured the medial side of my left elbow working out. After dicecting my program, it turns out that Chin-Ups were the culprit. I know I should rest it for a month. Other than concentrating on legs and cardio, what else can I do that won’t aggravate my elbow? I don’t want to go a month without working on upper body exercises. Help!
Sarge, I have medial epiconylitis and I probably got it from chins or maybe, like TC, doing heavy bar curls. The orthopedic doc won’t give me cortizone so now, I’m icing, taking Voltarin and have started doing negatives with the injured arm. I’m about to get some MAG-10 and see if that helps as well. Lastly, I’m using a tennis elbow wrap, tightened about an inch or two below my elbow and that seems to help also. I have switched from bar curls and bar benches to DB curls and DB benches. Seems to help.
This type of pain is often secondary to a muscle imbalance between wrist flexors and extensors. It is fairly common in climbing and golf. I would suggest you have someone examine the elbow to make sure that the pain is secondary to a muscle imbalance. The best way to offset this is to perform reverse wrist curls religiously. (pronation and supination will also help some) Most of what we do every day and in the gym focuses on gripping which works the wrist flexors (wrist flexors are also finger flexors in case you were wondering). Therefore, direct work is needed on the wrist extensors to counteract all the attention the finger/wrist flexors are getting. Hope that helps.
Thanks for the advice, guys.