Elbow weirdness

[Jason Donaldson]

Hello Will, et al..

My details:
Male, age 52
5'7", 255 lb
Eight and a half years training, currently prepping for a push/pull meet at the end of March
Training with my own equipment, in my garage

Incident:
Last night, I had deadlifts planned for 465 x 1, followed by 420 x 3. (My max single is 515.)

I pulled the 465 single with alternate grip, left hand supine. The rep went just fine, but on the way up, my left elbow audibly popped, sounding and feeling like cracking a knuckle. There wasn't really any pain when it happened, and I completed the rep normally. Afterward, it had a bit of an aching sort of feeling, but it did not interfere with my backoff triple with straps less than ten minutes later. (In fact, the triple was a breeze to complete.) I was able to hang normally from my chin bar with a prone grip immediately afterward with no additional pain.

After putting away my weights, I took 800 mg of ibuprofen with 1000 mg of acetaminophen.

Last night, and into today yet, my elbow is sore and kind of stiff feeling, especially at full extension and somewhat from general moving around. I have no visible bruising or swelling, and no loss of function that I'm aware of in my arm, wrist, or fingers. I am continuing to take ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Since the incident, I've found my elbow cracking during normal movements from time to time, again like cracking a knuckle and with zero pain. (In general, I have lots of joints crack from time to time, such that I want to jump up and down and see if I glow like a chemlight, but it's only occasionally an elbow that does it.)

Possibly relevant background:
In November, after not doing chins for quite some time, I installed a bar in my garage and started working on them again. Since then, the supine grip has been very challenging at any width, feeling as if I lack the flexibility for the supine grip. In pull ups, however, the prone grip hasn't caused any discomfort.

Questions:
I'm inclined to just train carefully through this and see how it goes - is this a reasonable approach, or should I be more concerned?

Is there anything that I may have done that would cause such a thing to happen, or is this more likely a general case of shit happening?

Are there any other details I should be providing, or any other questions I should be asking?

Thank you.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Does your left bicep look normal?

[Jason Donaldson]

Does your left bicep look normal?

It does, yes. Hook test feels the same for both arms, with no pain when I pull on the tendon.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I dunno. Get an MRI.

[Griffin727]

It does, yes. Hook test feels the same for both arms, with no pain when I pull on the tendon.

If the cracking is in medal cubtial area near the distal bicep tendon, I had pain like this once when I was 22 and it made me switch to a hook grip style deadlift. Best of luck.

[Jason Donaldson]

If the cracking is in medal cubtial area near the distal bicep tendon, I had pain like this once when I was 22 and it made me switch to a hook grip style deadlift. Best of luck.

I have no idea where the cracking was occurring, honestly. It felt like the sort of "joint slightly out of place" of a knuckle before it's popped. It's also all but resolved on its own now, thankfully. I have the dread "Vietnamese sausage fingers", which does me no favors for hook grip, though I do practice it on the way up in my DL warm-ups on principle, before I switch to alternate grip and/or straps.

I dunno. Get an MRI.

I don't lightly hold off on your advice, Rip, but economic factors had me hold off on this one to see what happened. I've continued to progress carefully, tapering off ibuprofen and increasing DL weights, and things have pretty much resolved with this. That said, see below for what I suspect to be a related issue.

Don't stop doing your chinups once it's fixed.

On this note from a different thread, I am curious about something. I have been training for a number of years, successfully driving up my strength with the main exercises, but without a chin bar. I finally figured out a way to install a bar recently, and have found that it seems I've lost significant rotational flexibility in my arms, from neglect or age or both, I don't know. I have a very hard time hanging at full extension with a supine grip. Prone grip, I can handle. It's not as much a matter of pain (though there is some) as it is that my elbows just don't want to assume the position. I've been slowly trying to stretch things out, applying more weight and obtaining more ROM to various movements.

The reduced ROM seemed to get worse once I started using the chin bar for regular progression of chins, which has me wondering if it's a matter of tendonitis after all. Can tendonitis happen without much perception of pain, or does this suggest something else?

Should I consider trying the pin firing protocol for this?

And am I right in thinking that, at such time as I get this sorted, I should keep doing chins to keep it from recurring?

[Will Morris]

Hello Will, et al..

My details:
Male, age 52
5'7", 255 lb
Eight and a half years training, currently prepping for a push/pull meet at the end of March
Training with my own equipment, in my garage

Incident:
Last night, I had deadlifts planned for 465 x 1, followed by 420 x 3. (My max single is 515.)

I pulled the 465 single with alternate grip, left hand supine. The rep went just fine, but on the way up, my left elbow audibly popped, sounding and feeling like cracking a knuckle. There wasn't really any pain when it happened, and I completed the rep normally. Afterward, it had a bit of an aching sort of feeling, but it did not interfere with my backoff triple with straps less than ten minutes later. (In fact, the triple was a breeze to complete.) I was able to hang normally from my chin bar with a prone grip immediately afterward with no additional pain.

After putting away my weights, I took 800 mg of ibuprofen with 1000 mg of acetaminophen.

Last night, and into today yet, my elbow is sore and kind of stiff feeling, especially at full extension and somewhat from general moving around. I have no visible bruising or swelling, and no loss of function that I'm aware of in my arm, wrist, or fingers. I am continuing to take ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Since the incident, I've found my elbow cracking during normal movements from time to time, again like cracking a knuckle and with zero pain. (In general, I have lots of joints crack from time to time, such that I want to jump up and down and see if I glow like a chemlight, but it's only occasionally an elbow that does it.)

Possibly relevant background:
In November, after not doing chins for quite some time, I installed a bar in my garage and started working on them again. Since then, the supine grip has been very challenging at any width, feeling as if I lack the flexibility for the supine grip. In pull ups, however, the prone grip hasn't caused any discomfort.

Questions:
I'm inclined to just train carefully through this and see how it goes - is this a reasonable approach, or should I be more concerned?

Is there anything that I may have done that would cause such a thing to happen, or is this more likely a general case of shit happening?

Are there any other details I should be providing, or any other questions I should be asking?

Thank you.

I think you already know what I am going to say, although I’d say that I don’t necessarily agree with carpet bombing your kidneys and liver for some new onset joint cavitation without any objective evidence of injury.