Golfers Elbow..

[CT2018]

Apparently as its called. I've recently switched up my gym routine and seeing good results, but now I'm plagued with excruciating pain on the inside of my right elbow, right by the bone, which is quite tender to touch. I can also feel it when im washing my face or opening doors.

Below is my gym routine. Please pass comment if you identify any exercises below which may be the root cause of my problem.

Day 1 and 2 upper body usually fall on consecutive days - Thursday and Friday.

Day 3 leg and cardio usually falls on a Sunday or Monday.

Day 1 (chest & shoulders) all 3 x 12 sets

Shoulder:
Seated Dumbell Press
Dumbell front raise (alternating arms)
Cable Lateral Raises
Cable external rotation

Chest:
Incline dumbell press
Dumbell bench press
Cable flies (high and low)

Day 2 (Bicep and Back) all 3 x 12 sets

Bicep:
Rope Bicep Curl
Single arm cable curls
Dumbell hammer curls
Overhead rope tricep cable extension

Back
Dumbell bent over single arm rows
Seated cable rows
Cable pull downs
Seated plate machine rows

Day 3 Leg & cardio.

Many thanks

Mike

[paulinkansas]

Too much upper. Not enough lower.

[Keltron]

Too much upper. Not enough lower.

I might also guess that within all that upper body work OP, you’re going harder/heavier/more effort on your pressing movements than your pulling movements.

A huge factor in elbow issues is actually shoulder misalignment. Next time you feel pain washing your face or doing something normal/non load bearing, try retracting and depressing the shoulder of the affected arm and see if the pain goes away.

So what I myself am trying is Rippetoe’s chin-up protocol. The idea is that you do 15-20 sets of low rep chin up w/minimal rest in order to inflame the elbow enough to “kick start” healing. The idea is that you do it every 3 to 5 days and after the 5th or 6th time, your elbow should be completely healed.

My max chin ups is like 8 or 9 so I’ve been doing sets of 4 w/about 90-120 seconds rest between sets. I’ve done the workout three times so far and it does feel like it’s getting better.


But if you’re going to try it, look it up and follow the protocol exactly as they have it laid out.

[MajorTendonitis]

Actually I was pretty impressed with your routine , as I didn’t see barbell bench press in there . Benching heavy with a barbell is what gave me terrible tendonitis in my arms . Mines the same as your mentioning , golfers elbow / forearm .
I believe if I stuck with dumbbells that it never would have happened. Also benching with a suicide grip made things worse I believe, as it puts a weird strain on your tendons .
The only thing I see that I think isn’t helping you is tricep extensions . Any time I isolate my triceps , it’s a recipe for disaster .
I would also recommend not doing any jerky movements,or fast movements when you’re doing resistance training . I watched this doctor explain how doing fast reps on bench press does not effect tendonitis, well I gotta say for all his education he’s a fk’n idiot . I never had so much tendon pain in my life as I did when I did fast reps .

Naproxen helps to a point , but the only thing I’ve ever found that works is lots of time off unfortunately. Tendons get little blood, so they take forever to heal , and just when you think your it’s gone , you aggravate it all over again

[air2fakie]

Golfer's elbow is an overuse injury. Not sure what you were doing before, but if you made changes that are causing you pain, don't keep doing the same thing.

Your Day 2, particularly all the curls, then followed by all the rows/pulldowns is likely the culprit. The cable flies on Day 1 may be wearing down that tendon the day before as well. Also don't see why the tricep extension is on Day 2 rather than Day 1.

Program however you want, but given your issue you may want to just do 2 Upper days with more focus on compounds with some sets of curls/triceps as finishers. Then gradually increase to more arms isolations over time if you feel you need to. All those curls before a bunch of rows doesn't make sense to me.

But do whatever you feel works best for you.