Soreness in inner elbow instead of biceps after bicep/back workout? Progress?

[EDutton99]

Although I've been lurking around Bodybuilding.com for a couple of years now, this is my first actual post in this forum, so I suppose I will offer up a brief summary about myself to give everyone a little background. I am 33 yrs old (****!), and have just gotten back into weightlifting within the past year after re-assessing my health/fitness level & my poor diet/nutrition habits from years as a couch potato. I was a starting OL/DL/Tight End in football during my high school years, but I have not seriously hit the gym hard on a regular basis since those days. The short and bitter of that story: life/kids took precedence over worrying about how I looked during my 20's. Within the past year, I have since transitioned to a high protein diet (~50/25/25 split) low calorie diet to cut fat, and I've been hitting the gym hard to gain lean muscle. I alternate my workouts every 6 weeks between a heavy "pyramid/drop-set" style workout and the more moderate 4X Mass workout. Like most people here, I've done A LOT of research on nutrition, workouts, and supplementation and am working hard to implement the best of all 3 into my daily life. I also consider myself a pretty savvy and seasoned weightlifter due to my years of lifting during football and the ton of research I've done lately.

I guess the point behind all of that was simply to say that, although this is my 1st post in this forum, I am not a "newb" so don't start flaming me for this question. I know how to use the "search" function well, but I have not seen a thread that pertains exactly to my question.

So, my question is about soreness/progress in the arms after a back/biceps workout. I always complete all my back movements first so that my biceps will get indirect work before I move to isolating them with various curls, etc. I have seen about 1 inch of growth in my biceps while still losing lbs. on the scale, so I feel I am making progress. However, my biceps muscles never get sore on the days after working out. Instead, I feel soreness in my inner elbow region and some in my forearm. I expected the forearm soreness because I like to twist my forearms inward during the top motion of dumbbell curls, specifically trying to work the forearms. But I don't really understand the inner elbow soreness instead of full bicep soreness. I don't remember this feeling during my younger weightlifting days. Does anyone else experience this on a regular basis? Have you made long-term bicep progress even in the absence of full-on bicep soreness? Hopefully, another seasoned bodybuilder can help me with this one, because this is literally the ONLY body part that doesn't get sore after I workout.

Thanks for any help, guys! And I will try to participate more in the forums myself in the future.

[EDutton99]

Anyone? Am I the only one that experiences this?

[DavidJohnston48]

Hi!

It sounds to be like you've found a muscle or tendon that you don't usually use, and by twisting, you're burning that out over your biceps.

I'd try a week of concentration curls or preacher curls, no twists to see if the problem goes away?

I have had a similar experience from doing pull ups with the forearm braced against a bar (forearm stays vertical) That really is challenging on the forearm, and inner elbow. I do however do zottman curls, and never really find that I have the problem that you mention.

It sounds to me that you're building a functional strength, rather than size - nothing wrong with it, but expect at least initially that your supporting muscles and tendons will fail first. You could do some twisting, then concentration with a much lighter weight, as your biceps will already be tired. If you do a few sets with 10-12 reps, and a lighter weight, you will get more growth, but less strength.

Not sure if I helped you there really??

[jmarcus101]

Welcome to the forums! lol

-Is your pain over the large bony area on the inside of the elbow?
-It sounds to me as though you are suffering from a medial epicondylitis injury. Although it is mainly known as golfer's elbow, it can happen with any sport or during exercise.

-Do you follow any of these symptoms?
Pain and tenderness on the inner side of your elbow. Sometimes the pain extends along the inner side of your forearm.
Stiffness. Your elbow may feel stiff, and it may hurt to make a fist.
Weakness. You may have weakness in your hands and wrists.
Numbness or tingling. Many people with golfer's elbow experience numbness or a tingling sensation that radiates into one or more fingers — usually the ring and little fingers.

-The pain is usually brought on with the following actions relevant to you:
Shake hands, turn a doorknob, pick up something with your palm down, flex your wrist toward your forearm

The reason you may have this condition unfortunately has a lot to do with your age and condition. Although it is great that you want to get back into things, get healthy, and leave couch potato land, your body is not quite as resilient as it used to be. With a sedentary lifestyle quickly moving into an active one, your tendons have become somewhat lax. Essentially medial epicondylitis is the inflammation around the epicondyle which causes friction to the tendons in the area. This will ultimately cause the symptoms mentioned above.


Hope this helps and let me know if you have any more questions.
-Justin

[sadiq100]

this is perfectly normal. Just rest the muscle a bit longer

[dashing5]

Im the same way. your growing so i wouldnt worry. something that helped me was to keep my wrists bent back. In a supinated position bend your wrists back a little. it helped me

[IDrinkBloodLOL]

That's your tendon attachment. Nothing wrong with it getting worked, but let it heal up nicely before you work it hard again. It isn't an injury, but it could become one if you went at it again too hard too soon.

[iviicrociot]

I had pretty nagging wrist elbow and lower back problems the first 8 months. My thoughts on it were since I lifted regularly in high school and for a 6 month period 5 years ago I was intermediate. So I was doing a 4-day split with a ton of volume at high weight.

In short my tendons and joints weren't ready for that level of stimulation and at first my wrist went out. I was really a beginner from a physical standpoint and was using a workout template not suited for me and I paid for it.

I still can't do skullcrushers or hammer curls at full weight a year later. I've found other ways to hit my muscles without aggrevating my old 'injuries'. May need to reevaluate your program.

[mikegilbert1986]

Happens to me a lot man espechally when i seperated back and biceps now i do them together ounce a week so theres more healing time

[shotteh22]

Im currently suffering from exactly what the OP discussed. I am seeing great gains everywhere except my biceps. I am only sore (very sore) at my inner elbow after isolated bicep lifts. Any ideas to aid in training for bicep recruitment?

[paulernestbrugh]

Hi,

I am having the same issue. I recently started working out for the first time in 20 years. When I do seated rows, I have a pain in my inner elbow radiating into my upper forearm. The soreness does not seem to want to go away. I am worried that it may be an injury, but I don't want to quit working out. The pain is only in one elbow as well. Any suggestions?

[Freerunner25]

I experience the same thing. I've been told that the soreness is from my tendon. I've recently been trying some different techniques to avoid anymore soreness. We'll see how it goes.

[phillipallan]

I have had the same problem. Rest and don't turn the weights during your lift, this puts on added stress on the elbow.

Although I've been lurking around Bodybuilding.com for a couple of years now, this is my first actual post in this forum, so I suppose I will offer up a brief summary about myself to give everyone a little background. I am 33 yrs old (****!), and have just gotten back into weightlifting within the past year after re-assessing my health/fitness level & my poor diet/nutrition habits from years as a couch potato. I was a starting OL/DL/Tight End in football during my high school years, but I have not seriously hit the gym hard on a regular basis since those days. The short and bitter of that story: life/kids took precedence over worrying about how I looked during my 20's. Within the past year, I have since transitioned to a high protein diet (~50/25/25 split) low calorie diet to cut fat, and I've been hitting the gym hard to gain lean muscle. I alternate my workouts every 6 weeks between a heavy "pyramid/drop-set" style workout and the more moderate 4X Mass workout. Like most people here, I've done A LOT of research on nutrition, workouts, and supplementation and am working hard to implement the best of all 3 into my daily life. I also consider myself a pretty savvy and seasoned weightlifter due to my years of lifting during football and the ton of research I've done lately.

I guess the point behind all of that was simply to say that, although this is my 1st post in this forum, I am not a "newb" so don't start flaming me for this question. I know how to use the "search" function well, but I have not seen a thread that pertains exactly to my question.

So, my question is about soreness/progress in the arms after a back/biceps workout. I always complete all my back movements first so that my biceps will get indirect work before I move to isolating them with various curls, etc. I have seen about 1 inch of growth in my biceps while still losing lbs. on the scale, so I feel I am making progress. However, my biceps muscles never get sore on the days after working out. Instead, I feel soreness in my inner elbow region and some in my forearm. I expected the forearm soreness because I like to twist my forearms inward during the top motion of dumbbell curls, specifically trying to work the forearms. But I don't really understand the inner elbow soreness instead of full bicep soreness. I don't remember this feeling during my younger weightlifting days. Does anyone else experience this on a regular basis? Have you made long-term bicep progress even in the absence of full-on bicep soreness? Hopefully, another seasoned bodybuilder can help me with this one, because this is literally the ONLY body part that doesn't get sore after I workout.

Thanks for any help, guys! And I will try to participate more in the forums myself in the future.

[greenleaf]

How should you train arms and still make gains if you have chronic golfer's elbows? I can feel the dull pain when I bench and do curls.

[dernodern]

I've got this exact problem at the moment...AGAIN and I initially encountered this problem in August 2014. It is expected and normal in some ways as your putting a lot of pressure on your joint and tendons but the problem your describing is inflamed\tight tendon muscles around the inner elbows. I had this problem last year and I was due to go on holiday and pushing myself to much and I ended up fully injuring the tendon attached to my inner elbow, this is called golfers elbow. I had to take about 5 months off to let the muscle heal and after some physio its got back to normal which is great. Now recently I have started upping the weights again and as you describe when I do any type of curling and expose the inner elbow my elbow feels the burn not my biceps or even forearms.

So my advice to you (before you do potentially injury yourself) would be to either self teach yourself some simple massage techniques from YouTube for the inner elbow\golfers elbow or get a physio session once every two weeks, this will take the tightness out of the muscles and help a lot. Also alter your bicep workouts for a short while, I would avoid exercises where you really feel the burn, I had to change to hammer curls and using different type of bars when curling, doing something at a different angle makes the world of difference.

If you want me to send you any videos from you tube that I used just let me know.

Although I've been lurking around Bodybuilding.com for a couple of years now, this is my first actual post in this forum, so I suppose I will offer up a brief summary about myself to give everyone a little background. I am 33 yrs old (****!), and have just gotten back into weightlifting within the past year after re-assessing my health/fitness level & my poor diet/nutrition habits from years as a couch potato. I was a starting OL/DL/Tight End in football during my high school years, but I have not seriously hit the gym hard on a regular basis since those days. The short and bitter of that story: life/kids took precedence over worrying about how I looked during my 20's. Within the past year, I have since transitioned to a high protein diet (~50/25/25 split) low calorie diet to cut fat, and I've been hitting the gym hard to gain lean muscle. I alternate my workouts every 6 weeks between a heavy "pyramid/drop-set" style workout and the more moderate 4X Mass workout. Like most people here, I've done A LOT of research on nutrition, workouts, and supplementation and am working hard to implement the best of all 3 into my daily life. I also consider myself a pretty savvy and seasoned weightlifter due to my years of lifting during football and the ton of research I've done lately.

I guess the point behind all of that was simply to say that, although this is my 1st post in this forum, I am not a "newb" so don't start flaming me for this question. I know how to use the "search" function well, but I have not seen a thread that pertains exactly to my question.

So, my question is about soreness/progress in the arms after a back/biceps workout. I always complete all my back movements first so that my biceps will get indirect work before I move to isolating them with various curls, etc. I have seen about 1 inch of growth in my biceps while still losing lbs. on the scale, so I feel I am making progress. However, my biceps muscles never get sore on the days after working out. Instead, I feel soreness in my inner elbow region and some in my forearm. I expected the forearm soreness because I like to twist my forearms inward during the top motion of dumbbell curls, specifically trying to work the forearms. But I don't really understand the inner elbow soreness instead of full bicep soreness. I don't remember this feeling during my younger weightlifting days. Does anyone else experience this on a regular basis? Have you made long-term bicep progress even in the absence of full-on bicep soreness? Hopefully, another seasoned bodybuilder can help me with this one, because this is literally the ONLY body part that doesn't get sore after I workout.

Thanks for any help, guys! And I will try to participate more in the forums myself in the future.

[Zhixxihz]

How should you train arms and still make gains if you have chronic golfer's elbows? I can feel the dull pain when I bench and do curls.

This is the exact same question I am asking as well .. have been suffering from left elbow pain for past 3 weeks or so .. have skipped all bicep curls, chest flyes, pull ups, anything that needs the elbow to curl, the pain is nonexistance on the right arm but pronounced on the left arm. reducing the curling exercise for a about a week seems to help a little .. but wondering what I can do in the meantime for arms, bicep training.

[Stephaniemariee]

I had the same exact problem and pain down to the back and biceps workouts. It's definitely the twisting motion because I did that for round the world curls and the forearm pullups and the pain is insane. I haven't felt this way since the very first chest workout in my life. But I also took a workout hiatus so expected haha thank you for the response!

[shotteh22]

Hey all.

Facing the same issue in 2016. Has anyone had great success overcoming this? Would love to be able to target my biceps without hurting these tendons

[kconnell]

As one of the earlier posters said, this injury is called medial epicondylitis, also known as golfers elbow or tennis elbow. It is caused by repetitive injury to that area. Basically, it is tendinitis in that area.

Best way to help?

o rest the area - may need a few weeks or months, depending on your circumstances
o ice. Use ice packs for up to 20 minutes on/off
o anti-inflamirories (ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, ketoprofen, etc.)
o massage the area, including forearm flexors
o light stretching
o light weight strengthening exercises ( once swelling and tenderness subsidies).

http://www.physicaltherapybarehills....epicondylitis/

[oldguygazza]

Happens to me a lot man espechally when i seperated back and biceps now i do them together ounce a week so theres more healing time

Sensible idea and I'm going to follow your lead. I currently do back and arms as standalone workouts, I know I've been over-working my arms, partly because I've not been able to do much cardio or leg work, having snapped my ACL a few months back. Now it's in slightly better shape, and I can do a little lower body stuff, I'll work bi's with back and tri's with chest to reduce the strain.

Wouldn't agree with some of the other posters who said that they've not seen upper arm progress whilst suffering with this niggle. Arms have been my biggest gain in the last 6 month.

[Sammymhmm]

Hi!

It sounds to be like you've found a muscle or tendon that you don't usually use, and by twisting, you're burning that out over your biceps.

Not sure if I helped you there really??

I've always had this issue after starting weightlifting again after a long time of no lifting. I always thought it was the portion of the bicep that connects to the forearm swelling up from being used, am I wrong or am I misunderstanding the description of what the original question is stating? Because this discomfort is a pain for a week but it always goes away.

[c1rcle]

Although I've been lurking around Bodybuilding.com for a couple of years now, this is my first actual post in this forum, so I suppose I will offer up a brief summary about myself to give everyone a little background. I am 33 yrs old (****!), and have just gotten back into weightlifting within the past year after re-assessing my health/fitness level & my poor diet/nutrition habits from years as a couch potato. I was a starting OL/DL/Tight End in football during my high school years, but I have not seriously hit the gym hard on a regular basis since those days. The short and bitter of that story: life/kids took precedence over worrying about how I looked during my 20's. Within the past year, I have since transitioned to a high protein diet (~50/25/25 split) low calorie diet to cut fat, and I've been hitting the gym hard to gain lean muscle. I alternate my workouts every 6 weeks between a heavy "pyramid/drop-set" style workout and the more moderate 4X Mass workout. Like most people here, I've done A LOT of research on nutrition, workouts, and supplementation and am working hard to implement the best of all 3 into my daily life. I also consider myself a pretty savvy and seasoned weightlifter due to my years of lifting during football and the ton of research I've done lately.

I guess the point behind all of that was simply to say that, although this is my 1st post in this forum, I am not a "newb" so don't start flaming me for this question. I know how to use the "search" function well, but I have not seen a thread that pertains exactly to my question.

So, my question is about soreness/progress in the arms after a back/biceps workout. I always complete all my back movements first so that my biceps will get indirect work before I move to isolating them with various curls, etc. I have seen about 1 inch of growth in my biceps while still losing lbs. on the scale, so I feel I am making progress. However, my biceps muscles never get sore on the days after working out. Instead, I feel soreness in my inner elbow region and some in my forearm. I expected the forearm soreness because I like to twist my forearms inward during the top motion of dumbbell curls, specifically trying to work the forearms. But I don't really understand the inner elbow soreness instead of full bicep soreness. I don't remember this feeling during my younger weightlifting days. Does anyone else experience this on a regular basis? Have you made long-term bicep progress even in the absence of full-on bicep soreness? Hopefully, another seasoned bodybuilder can help me with this one, because this is literally the ONLY body part that doesn't get sore after I workout.

Thanks for any help, guys! And I will try to participate more in the forums myself in the future.

Well, it's absolutely great to be back on the forums after so long!

I experience exactly the same in my inner elbow at the bottom of the biceps.
What works for me is making sure I completely rest the muscle.
Also, when I next train biceps I tend to make sure I don't go the full stretch on the lowering phase. Instead, I try to stop the movement at least an inch before full stretch. Contraction isn't really an issue when it comes to tendons, it's more the stretch phase of the movement.

When I get carried away and go for full stretch and contraction that's where in the next few days I experience extreme soreness in the inner elbow tendon - to a point where I'm walking around like a Velociraptor.

Hope this helps.

Man it's great to be back!

[Goingviking]

As one of the earlier posters said, this injury is called medial epicondylitis, also known as golfers elbow or tennis elbow. It is caused by repetitive injury to that area. Basically, it is tendinitis in that area.

Best way to help?

o rest the area - may need a few weeks or months, depending on your circumstances
o ice. Use ice packs for up to 20 minutes on/off
o anti-inflamirories (ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, ketoprofen, etc.)
o massage the area, including forearm flexors
o light stretching
o light weight strengthening exercises ( once swelling and tenderness subsidies).

http://www.physicaltherapybarehills....epicondylitis/

^^This is a good starting point.

Joints and tendons do not heal as fast as muscles as they have restricted blood flow. This means sometimes we need to rest form certain exercises to allow the joints and tendons to heal even if our muscle has fully recovered. Alternatively or additionally you can avoid exercises that aggravate the joint/tendon. If you are lucky then the problem might be caused by tight muscles, and can potentially be healed by loosening up the muscles and alleviating the tension on the joint. Heat pads are probably the best things to increase blood flow by targeting a specific area; though you can use some of the same supplements that people use for erectile dysfunction for overall better blood flow in the body.

[1stillgoing]

This is an old post but, I have a similar issue but not necessarily an "elbow" issue. I have/had tennis elbow and know of the pain it causes in your grip. It occurs near the bony part of the elbow. I found some exercises that help that. Now, no more pain near there, however, the elbow pain I feel now is not really the elbow. It is in the crook of my elbow (stick your arm out, turn your arm palm up where they would draw blood is where the pain starts from) the pain extends about 2 inches above and below the bend. The only time I feel the pain is during curls, bench fine, rows fine, pull ups fine. I even find it hard to get a good flex in my left bicep.

[maddog7400]

Make sure you grip the bar with the meat of your hands not just your fingers. You are likely putting to much stress on the tendons and nerves that run from the tips of your fingers through your elbow and up your arm