Instant Bursitis

[Dust Devil]

Bench pressing today and there was a "pop!" at the top of my second rep, followed by a flash of pain. I was able to lower the bar without problem to my safety bars. About 15 minutes later, I looked at my elbow in the mirror and the olecranon was swollen up like a golfball. To my knowledge, there was no swelling prior to my bench pressing, although I had been experiencing some elbow pain (but I have for years.)

Does bursitis occur that quickly? What does this mean for my future of bench pressing?

[Nick D'Agostino]

Bursitis often does occur that quickly, and this will probably have no long term effect on future bench pressing. After the swelling goes down, I would start light in a few days and build back up slowly. I've worked with a person who experienced an episode like this and was fine in a week. I also had another person that it took a few months to get back to previous numbers on the press because it was irritating his elbow. The key takeaway here was both got back to benching just fine in time.

[Dust Devil]

What I'm curious about is why bench pressing had any role in this at all; from what I can see with the various muscle diagrams, the bursa is between bone & skin and from that, you wouldn't think triceps activation would have any effect on this.

Prior to this occurring, I had noticed a bit of unusual pain in the forearm, close to the elbow, but what seemed to make it better was focusing on keeping the weight over my wrist, rather than having my hand bent. When I Google on preventing bursitis, what I see is pages devoted to stretching forearm muscles or strengthening them, so the the thought appears to be that forearm muscles play a role in this.

Generally, though, bursitis is connected with a physical injury to the area and I might have been overly aggressive in rolling out my triceps a week or so ago with my lacrosse ball.

[Nick D'Agostino]

Everything you said is correct. Bursitis is usually connected to some type of impact or prolonged pressure on the area. I don't think stretching is particularly helpful, but if it feels good when you stretch, you can keep doing it. Figuring out the exact mechanisms leading up to bursitis in this particular case may not be feasible. The good news is you do not need that information to know what your next steps are.

[Dust Devil]

Thanks for your insight, Nick.

[Nick D'Agostino]

You're welcome

[Barry Charles]

Can I get in on this?

57yr old male. Training consistently for 6yrs.

The day the gym closed for covid, I did a mock meet. It went great. Not PRs but on schedule for my meet which was eventually canceled anyway.

385sq, 280bench, 530dl

Having no gym or equipment other than one dumbbell, some rusty scaffolding for pull-ups, and some push ups, I have NOT been training at all.

Three weeks into forced deload, my elbow bursa swole up to a golf ball. Classic bursitis. Some very minor pain if I press right on the bone.

Questions

Could this be caused by deload?

Could it be from the “new” routine?

Could it be an injury I’m not aware of? Like a bone chip?

Could it be a work from home related injury?

Can I continue doing things like pull-ups? (I usually have good results training through injuries)

Thanks coach!

[Dust Devil]

Can I get in on this?

My bursa swelled due to a triceps tendon tear. After I had it repaired, the swelling went away a few weeks after the surgery. (My ortho had said he would remove the bursa, but apparently he didn't.)

If you don't feel any pain when using your triceps, then you probably don't have that sort of injury. Still, you probably should have it looked at. After my injury, the nurse practitioner didn't recognize its cause and just prescribed some anti-inflammatories, which did nothing. I continued to work out, avoiding activities that used the triceps, but even squats & lat pulldowns aggravated it somewhat. An ortho recognized the problem instantly.