Forearm pain when lifting

[gabearias91]

I have been lifting for a few months now and just recently all of a sudden my forearms started to hurt whenever I try to rep anything for my upper body. It's about halfway down but it feels like its in the bone. Should I be concerned about this because it just started to all of a sudden and its been going on for about a week now

[Beerto]

I think it's just a strain... Try training forearms and don't do any close grip bench that'll put even more stress.

[vnr]

Interesting to see someone with an identical injury. 3 months ago I was going through my bicep curls and although the pain had been there every time I curled for a few weeks, suddenly it got INTENSE, felt like I had snapped the ulnar bone mid way between wrist and elbow. Wrists hurt as well. Well, it was so bad I couldn't brush my teeth with that arm. Anyway after a week of injury time my right arm healed up... 3 months later my left arm is only just healing properly now. Went to the doctors and then to private physiotherapy. Got it originally diagnosed as a trapped ulnar nerve but physio set the doctor straight and it turned out to be an imbalance between bicep/tricep and forearm strength (biceps and triceps pulling too hard on the forearm and causing tremendous strain in the forearm muscle). After about 3 weeks into the injury it felt like a massive lump was where the pain was, had to massage that as much as I could bare before feeling sick with pain.

So how to solve it;

- Reduce your weights by half, if this doesn't stop pain when lifting, take a week out, then try with 50% weight, if it's still there, drop by 75% of max, and so on.
- Work forearms once a day with low weight and high reps.
- Seriously don't try lift through it at normal weight, I did that and now I'm on my third month of being inactive.

Also some quick troubleshooting techniques to make sure it is what I have;

- The area hurts to press, not just to lift, but hurts to touch.
- If you put the tips of your little finger and your thumb together on the affected arm, put your index finger through the hole and try to pull them apart by pulling up whilst trying to keep them together on your affected arm (should cause some pain)
- Another is to grasp your middle and index finger on the unaffected arm with your hand of the affected arm and try and extend your affected arm from a bent position whilst gripping tight and pulling in an opposite direction with the arm of the hand being grasped (should cause pain)

[gabearias91]

Interesting to see someone with an identical injury. 3 months ago I was going through my bicep curls and although the pain had been there every time I curled for a few weeks, suddenly it got INTENSE, felt like I had snapped the ulnar bone mid way between wrist and elbow. Wrists hurt as well. Well, it was so bad I couldn't brush my teeth with that arm. Anyway after a week of injury time my right arm healed up... 3 months later my left arm is only just healing properly now. Went to the doctors and then to private physiotherapy. Got it originally diagnosed as a trapped ulnar nerve but physio set the doctor straight and it turned out to be an imbalance between bicep/tricep and forearm strength (biceps and triceps pulling too hard on the forearm and causing tremendous strain in the forearm muscle). After about 3 weeks into the injury it felt like a massive lump was where the pain was, had to massage that as much as I could bare before feeling sick with pain.

So how to solve it;

- Reduce your weights by half, if this doesn't stop pain when lifting, take a week out, then try with 50% weight, if it's still there, drop by 75% of max, and so on.
- Work forearms once a day with low weight and high reps.
- Seriously don't try lift through it at normal weight, I did that and now I'm on my third month of being inactive.

Also some quick troubleshooting techniques to make sure it is what I have;

- The area hurts to press, not just to lift, but hurts to touch.
- If you put the tips of your little finger and your thumb together on the affected arm, put your index finger through the hole and try to pull them apart by pulling up whilst trying to keep them together on your affected arm (should cause some pain)
- Another is to grasp your middle and index finger on the unaffected arm with your hand of the affected arm and try and extend your affected arm from a bent position whilst gripping tight and pulling in an opposite direction with the arm of the hand being grasped (should cause pain)

Yeah I started feeling it this past week after I worked on my biceps on monday. I thought it was not a big deal until I almost dropped the ez bar on me while doing skull crushers on tuesday because the pain got worse. I took today off in addition to the weekend being my rest days and I just did the things you said and it did cause some pain. Do you have any suggestions on workout for my forearms to help with this?

[vnr]

Yeah I started feeling it this past week after I worked on my biceps on monday. I thought it was not a big deal until I almost dropped the ez bar on me while doing skull crushers on tuesday because the pain got worse. I took today off in addition to the weekend being my rest days and I just did the things you said and it did cause some pain. Do you have any suggestions on workout for my forearms to help with this?

Yeah I had the same trouble with the EZ curl bar on skull crushers and bicep curls. It was the bicep curls on the EZ bar that put me out of the gym properly.

Exercises I do:
#1 - on youtube the video URL ends after .com with /watch?v=JgiCXTP_K_8 (sorry can't post links yet)<----- I found a video of a guy who did what I did, however I only did the exercises from 0:45 seconds ONWARDS. The exercise he does prior to 0:45 seconds caused me an insane amount of pain and I couldn't do it but I was told (NOT by my physio) that it was a good forearm strengthening exercise... But like I said, I couldn't physically do it. The exercises from 0:45 onwards took away a large amount of pain for a while and I would put 95% of my recovery down to them.

#2 - Next exercise is the simple palm facing up with a 4-6kg DBB in it and your arm on a flat surface (making sure to take pressure off bicep so you don't further injure it but not in a way that it puts pressure on the affected area, so make sure the 'bad area' and down is hanging off the edge) and then just wrist curl it. (Just move your wrist from the position where your palm is facing up to the point where your palm faces you). I did these to failure for 3 sets with long breaks between.

#3 - Next is same as above but with palm down.

Just as a side note, my physiotherapist told me not to go through the centre... So for example, if we take exercise #2 and started palm facing forward and curled it all the way up to palm facing you that would be bad according to my physiotherapist... I did this however to cut out time. He suggested;
->palm facing up then curl to palm facing you
AND
->palm facing forward then curl to palm facing up

Similar with exercise #3. Personally it did me no harm to go through centre but just be careful if you do (not sure what of...)

As for #1 - if you don't have weights that allow you to add/remove plates then use something like a hammer, anything similar will help. Golden rule is don't do any other exercises that hurt other than these, these should only cause some discomfort to the area and that should go after a few reps, it shouldn't feel like you are about to snap your arm / forearm. Just out of curiosity, how bad is the pain? Is it stopping you doing daily things? Originally my left arm was so intense I had to tightly wrap it up to alleviate some of the pain and my right was bad that I couldn't pick any weights up but I could still use it for daily things with only mild pain. If yours is like my right arm, should heal within 3-4 weeks tops. If it's like my left, you're looking at a longer stretch and you want to make sure you really drop your weights down to about 25% of what they use to be when you go to the gym. As long as you are careful not to involve your biceps and triceps in exercises for your shoulders / traps you should be ok with them at 100%, but all tricep, all bicep, most back and all chest exercises are going to have to be reduced in weight (except maybe machine pec flies - but use common sense or you will end up worse off).

[gabearias91]

Yeah I had the same trouble with the EZ curl bar on skull crushers and bicep curls. It was the bicep curls on the EZ bar that put me out of the gym properly.

Exercises I do:
#1 - on youtube the video URL ends after .com with /watch?v=JgiCXTP_K_8 (sorry can't post links yet)<----- I found a video of a guy who did what I did, however I only did the exercises from 0:45 seconds ONWARDS. The exercise he does prior to 0:45 seconds caused me an insane amount of pain and I couldn't do it but I was told (NOT by my physio) that it was a good forearm strengthening exercise... But like I said, I couldn't physically do it. The exercises from 0:45 onwards took away a large amount of pain for a while and I would put 95% of my recovery down to them.

#2 - Next exercise is the simple palm facing up with a 4-6kg DBB in it and your arm on a flat surface (making sure to take pressure off bicep so you don't further injure it but not in a way that it puts pressure on the affected area, so make sure the 'bad area' and down is hanging off the edge) and then just wrist curl it. (Just move your wrist from the position where your palm is facing up to the point where your palm faces you). I did these to failure for 3 sets with long breaks between.

#3 - Next is same as above but with palm down.

Just as a side note, my physiotherapist told me not to go through the centre... So for example, if we take exercise #2 and started palm facing forward and curled it all the way up to palm facing you that would be bad according to my physiotherapist... I did this however to cut out time. He suggested;
->palm facing up then curl to palm facing you
AND
->palm facing forward then curl to palm facing up

Similar with exercise #3. Personally it did me no harm to go through centre but just be careful if you do (not sure what of...)

As for #1 - if you don't have weights that allow you to add/remove plates then use something like a hammer, anything similar will help. Golden rule is don't do any other exercises that hurt other than these, these should only cause some discomfort to the area and that should go after a few reps, it shouldn't feel like you are about to snap your arm / forearm. Just out of curiosity, how bad is the pain? Is it stopping you doing daily things? Originally my left arm was so intense I had to tightly wrap it up to alleviate some of the pain and my right was bad that I couldn't pick any weights up but I could still use it for daily things with only mild pain. If yours is like my right arm, should heal within 3-4 weeks tops. If it's like my left, you're looking at a longer stretch and you want to make sure you really drop your weights down to about 25% of what they use to be when you go to the gym. As long as you are careful not to involve your biceps and triceps in exercises for your shoulders / traps you should be ok with them at 100%, but all tricep, all bicep, most back and all chest exercises are going to have to be reduced in weight (except maybe machine pec flies - but use common sense or you will end up worse off).

Ok thank you, I've been out of the gym for three days now, I'm going today but gonna take it easy and try these things out. As far as pain, it hasn't been as bad anymore just when I was lifting some heavy tools this weekend since I do construction work or when I massage them but that's about it.

[vnr]

Ok thank you, I've been out of the gym for three days now, I'm going today but gonna take it easy and try these things out. As far as pain, it hasn't been as bad anymore just when I was lifting some heavy tools this weekend since I do construction work or when I massage them but that's about it.

Listen to the pain, I've heard A LOT of people say you can just train through it on lower weights, so just keep at it with weights that don't cause issues. Best of luck with recovery.

[italianmale62]

If you had a cut that was open would you stab at it?...then why would you do any forearm exercises when feeling pain???...yes sometimes you can work through the pain by warming up the forearm but if it's a bad pain your brain is telling your body to stop...I understand the need to keep lifting to reach your goals but at what cost?...working on any painful muscle will just set you back in the long run...I have tried many things over the years when my forearms would hurt...tapping them,wearing forearm sleeves,compression sleeves and once in awhile they would work....but if your getting that pain that's not a break down of the muscle pain then it's a strain and you have two choices..shut it down until it gets better or do exercises that won't effect the area in question.