Insane Elbow Pain Growing Worse

39 years old and been working out for 20 plus years. Last year got on trt and strength sky rocketed. My Max bench went up over 100lb in a year since starting. My issue is my elbow joints especially the left one. I am suffering severe pain when I do any exercises now. Sometimes at night it wakes me up with a horrible burning sensation. Is there Any supplements to reduce this pain… or any exercises or therapies?

I have golfers elbow that keeps getting flared up when I start training. Very annoying.

Where is the pain? Maybe if it’s actually in the joint it could be something else

I had golfers elbow 3 years ago. That was equally as frustrating! Using therabands helped get rid of that. It is right in my elbow… the golfers elbow was more towards my forearm.

It could be that your E2 levels are too low. Do you have any recent bloodwork that could shed some light? What is your TRT protocol? Supplements?

Are you taking decent amounts of omega 3 supplements every day? I find that when I go a few days without taking my fish oil supps, I’ll start having joint issues.

Here were my last bloods I think my E2 is ok. I am on 160mg of test cyp with two shots a week. I am taking omega 3’s i will try upping them and was also thinking about taking a collagen supplement.

Testosterone 1498
Free Test 38
T4 1.42 Range .82- 1.77
DHEA 440
TSH 4.5 Range 0.4- 4.5
Estradiol 50 Range 8-35
T3 free 3.5 Range 2.0-4.4
SHBG 57.6 Range 16-55

Big bench gains! Maybe your triceps and elbows can’t keep up. You could try some high rep pushdowns, maybe with bands if you’ve got some to get a nice elbow pump. Really push through and extend your arms all the way and drive your knuckles towards the floor.

Between 1:00 -2:00 this therapy bro talks about really extending your arm and contracting your tricep all the way.

Here’s another guy using actual bands and showing a few different grips to hit all over the triceps. Again, dude is really extending his arms and pushing all the way, knuckles to floor.

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What other lifts are you doing?

If it’s elbow tendinitis, then lay-off most upper body lifts and do high rep chin-ups 4-5 times a week for 2 weeks. Drive inflammation into the elbow and heal your tendon.

I do a bodybuilding workout. 1 body part a day for 5 days a week.

Chest
Bench
Incline
Flys
Decline

Shoulders
Military press, front raises, side, rear and shrugs

Legs squat, lunges, wide stance kettle bell squats, calf raises

Arms close grip bench, dumbbell extensions, kick backs, curls, hammer curls, forearm curls

Back. Dead lift, weighted pull up, barbell rows, t bar rows, hyper extensions,

That ratio of T to E2 is way off of what we typically see as a “good” ratio, meaning that compared your Total T, E2 is way too low using the ratio method.

According to good reported ratios, your E2 should be closer to the 70-90 mark.

Are you taking an AI or DIM? If so, try dropping that for a while and see if that comes up a little closer to where you should be.

If it was low e2 I would think he would have more than 1 joint hurting.

Not necessarily. And I’m not saying that’s what the problem is for sure, I’m just saying that it’s low.

If the OP truly wants to put this theory to the test, he could try having a few beers or something one night (this should help raise E2 levels temporarily), and see if his joints feel better the next day. Easy enough to know for more certain.

So, there are several possible culprits, and none of them are bench. Your squat grip can cause elbow torque and inflame tendonitis. Especially a possibility with high reps and a narrow grip if you use a decent weight. Add to that the Hammer curls, noted for causing elbow tendonitis, especially in high reps like a BBing routine would have, and even more if it’s in conjunction with other curls (An EZ Curl bar in particular is harsh). Drop the Hammers for a while and experiment with grip width on squats. Use Reverse Curls for a while instead and look at getting a thick bar or Fat Grips for your curls work.

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When I had joint and back pain it was e2 being low for more than a week. Drinking a few beers one night and seeing results the next day???

You would have to bring e2 up consistently for a couple of weeks and see

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I have no idea how long it would take to be honest. I don’t drink beer so I couldn’t say how quickly it would work. I’ve just read other guys here stating that it elevates E2.

I know that beer metabolizes extremely quickly, so I would have just thought that whatever changes it was going to do, it would be done quickly.

I also know that fluctuations in E2 can be felt fairly quickly as well, as reported by a shit ton of guys saying that infrequent protocols have them feeling like shit just before the next injection, so the effects of the fluctuations are obviously noticeable.

Putting all that together, you can see where my “fairly quick” assumptions are coming from, but admittedly, like I stated earlier, I really don’t know.

Try these especially voodoo flossing…

Perfect world get some ART therapy also

these alone can piss off elbows. Change up your split to soemthing like PPL and Drop all direct tricep work a few weeks. Swap barbell bench and military press for hammer machines etc also…Stretch you triceps and forearms hard after any session with upperbody work.

Down the line, ease back into things with super light rope pressdowns for like 3x30

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This is interesting with the e2. I am taking DIM and thought my e2 was normal/ almost high. My left elbow is brutal and to be honest all of my joints hurt to a degree. I can function with the level of pain in the other joints. I never suspected low e2.

If you go by the ratio method, which I have found to be pretty much spot on in my personal experience, then your TT to E2 ratio should fall somewhere in the 15-20ish range.

So TT/E2=r

If r is too high then E2 is too low, and vice versa.

For you, r = ~30, so E2 is too low using this method. It’s something to think about.

You start a PED, and subsequently enjoy a rapid and dramatic increase in muscle strength. You lift heavy (inferred from the references to your ‘max bench’). Your split dictates that you are, in effect, working your triceps 3x/week–on Chest day, Shoulder day and Arm day.

And now you find yourself plagued by a burning sensation at (what sounds like) the insertion of the distal triceps tendon.

Seems pretty clear what’s going on, and it has nothing to do with T, E, T/E, or any other levels.

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E levels are at 49 for me and I have tendonitis. It all started when we went into quarantine, when and I increased reps. Ive laid off the weights for a bit. But the flares up come and go. Started using a band in my forearm and it helps. Naproxen is something Im looking into trying soon.