Keeping My Head Down, Doing My Thing

[oldnattychris]

2022.1.22

90,0 kg

Morning & afternoon: Mobility and elbow rehab

Full-body warm-up

Because I have no imagination (exhibit A: my log) AND because I’m desperate to fix my elbow pain, I made a shameless theft of part of a posting @Voxel made in @aldebaran’s log.

(I probably should have asked first, guys; I hope you don’t mind? If you do, let me know and I’ll be happy to delete this post.)

I have to do something to try to rehab my elbows. Even though @Voxel’s instructions refer to rehabilitating Golfer’s Elbow (which I’m not entirely sure that I have), I decided to try them anyway, since I thought that if they make things worse, I’ll just stop, and if they make things better, then it’s a win!

This is what I did:

@Voxel

Warm-up (isometric hangs)

Key form notes:

1. focus on pulling with your lats and not your arms. Mentally engage with your muscles and contract them during the hangs.
2. “curl” your wrist a bit. You genuinely want to engage your forearm flexors.
3. if necessary: use a thick bar or fat gripz

Warm-up hangs,

• 2x5 second hangs pronated grip (pull-up) with 90 degree elbow angle
• 2x5 second hangs pronated grip with 120-140 degree elbow angle
• 2x5 second hangs supinated grip (chin-up) with 90 degree elbow angle
• 2x5 second hangs supinated grip with 120-140 degree elbow angle
• 3x5 second hangs neutral grip with 90 degree elbow angle
• 3x5 second hangs neutral grip with 120-140 degree elbow angle

Rest 10-20 seconds between hangs. If your problem was medial epicondylitis and you fix it you can still do this as a prehab thing, but you’d get away with fewer hangs and a much shorter rest period than you would in the rehab stages.

It is important that you ease into these, you don’t jump into them. Use a box if necessary to reach the bar. Do not pull yourself into position. You want to use as little velocity as possible when moving into these positions and moving out of these positions. That means not dropping down on the floor but stepping back on the box.

I still use this warm-up despite having progressed beyond the initial stages of my rehabilitation.

Phase 1 Unloading (3-4 weeks)

In this phase we want to use a relatively high intensity (75%) and low velocity as I remarked above in the warm-up. After the warm-up you then continue with hangs, and do

• 2x30-45 second, 120-140 degree neutral grip hang. Rest 2-3 minutes.
  • Aim to fail at around 30 seconds. Ideally you want your grip to give out and not your lats (as a climber I struggle with this). Add weight if necessary, or use fat gripz (that worked better for me). If you can (I can’t) you can do a one-arm hang instead and aim to fail at 15-20 seconds.
• 2x30-45 second, 120-140 degree pronated grip hang. Rest 2-3 minutes.

Form cues from earlier still apply (curl your wrist over a tad etc.)

Phase 1 is to be done 4 days per week, and on those days 2x times.

I advice doing this on days you will be doing pulling exercises. Leave 4-6 hours between sessions. Ideally 6+ hours.

I followed this with 5 minutes of thoracic stretching, as I usually do, and then I repeated everything again this afternoon.

I will equally shamelessly steal Phase 2 when the time comes, but for now I’m trying this out on rest days.

I’m not quite sure how I’m going to fit the timing in with all the other daily work I’m doing — that would require an 18-hour day at least, and I’m far too addicted to my sleep to do that. So I’ll have to muddle along and figure out what works as I go.