Injury Advice

[Stud Diesel]

I have been doing a power-lifting program for the last month. Basically a lot of low rep/one-rep max lifts with weekly poundage increases.

Last week I feel like I injured a muscle or tendon near my elbow. It’s about a half-inch back (towards the triceps) from the elbow joint slightly towards the inside—where you can push in past the bone. It’s not excruciatingly painful—just an annoyance, and it gets a little stiff when I don’t have my arms extended. It goes away after a day, but then it comes back when I lift, specifically when I do curls.

Any ideas what this is? I’ve usually been damn sturdy, so this is a first for me. Should I take a break to allow it to fully heal? I guess I should go have an MRI, huh?

Stud, I don't think your at the point of having an MRI scan quite yet. Depending on the number of years behind you and your activity as a powerlifter, you could be experiencing any one of a number of problems within the area your speaking of. It sounds like your referring to the medial aspect of the elbow, that bony protrusion is refered to as the medial epicondyle of the humerous.

You could have some localized arthritus and or a wearing away of cartillage causing spurs to form. That might explain the stiffness you perceive with a flexed eblow. Usually, a tendonitus or (epicondylitus) would manifest itself as a sharp pain made evident during exercise.

You could try shifting your biceps curl to a neutral grip (wrists facing together). If the supinated position, (wrists up) is causing you discomfort a neutral grip might take some of the discomfort out.

Will need more information to serve you better. Im sure there are some brothers here better educated than myself that would need to know a little more detail.

235lbs of Twisted_Steel and pure Sex Appeal!

[Stud Diesel]

Thanks TS. It’s comforting that you have identified some of the possible causes. If I do some reading on the conditions that you mentioned it might shed some light on what exactly is causing this.

I would also like to add that the pain occurs well after I’m done lifting. I lift in the early morning and I start to feel pain that afternoon/evening. The following day it’s not as bad, and by the 3rd day it’s about gone. A heating pad seems to help a little.