[quote]Sasben wrote:
Hey guys,
I had a mountain bike accident which lead me to dislocating my left elbow (it went back into place) but in the process, fratcuring the ulna (2-3 fragments in a few places) and the big one, smashed the radial head.
This lead to an operation (had one of the best elbow ortho. surgeons in Australia do the op) and he replaced my radial head with a titanium number and also cut off about a half inch of radial bone and inserted a 3-4 inch metal spike into the marrow. This is a permament replacement. I am just starting therapy etc and the Doc is amazed at the current recovery but says that i should never lift weights again due to possible arthritic problems down the road…
I assume he is generalising and that there are exercises i could do with no issue, but possibly have to minimise or eliminate closed chain exercises like bench press etc.
Has anyone here had a radial replacement or know of someone who still lifts like a t-man after this replacement ?
Thanks guys… trying to get out of the downer from it happening…
Still training legs though, just cant do deadlifts 
(YET)
[/quote]
Sasben,
While I haven’t had the same procedure you had, I do have metallic implants in both my forearms. I have had both ulnas shortened due to positive ulna variations which was tearing apart a cartilage complex in my wrist. In my operations, they cut the ulna in half, take out however much bone is needed to relieve pressure, then put it back together with a 5 inch plate and screws.
I had the right arm done about 5 years ago, and the left arm done about 3 years ago. As for activity, I have been a competitive gymnast for about 15 years (I am 23 now). I do not weight train so I can’t give you any heads up in that department, however I workout 6 days a week (3-4 hours each) and my workouts consist gymnastics skills, obviously, and lots of bodyweight strength. Many of the skills I work do put tremendous amounts of stress on the arms. Coming back after the surgeries, hanging skills/events (tension in the arms) came back the quickest and I have never really had a problem. Some skills require twisting of the hand which gives a good stretch from time to time, but a tolerance can be built up here. Support skills/events (compression of the arms, as in a pushup for example) have given me some problems…it was much slower coming back in this area. I think the biggest thing that got me through this was working through the pain and building up a work capacity and pain tolerance. Then again, there’s the possibility of pushing too far and hurting yourself further. It’s a tough call sometimes, and the doctors aren’t always right. Coming back from my second surgery, things just weren’t improving and the doctors told me to back off. A couple months went by and still no improvement. Despite what they said, I started back in, and things gradually got better bearing through the pain and all.
I hope this helps a little at least, even if you haven’t had the same procedure. Let me know if you have further quesitons. I’ll be out of town for about a week though.