Tricep Recovery

[barbhero]

Hi Rip,

I'm 6'3", 200lb, 31 yrs old. I've put on a good 25lb since starting SS about a year ago (though I tried Crossfit for ~3 months before going back to pure SS in August), so definitely skinny guy category.

I jumped into weighted dips too early (could only do about 3x12 bw) and tweaked my elbows. I aggravated it further by benching, most noticeably when locking out my elbows. The pain was constant for about 3 days radiating out from the tendon between my tricep and elbow. Now I notice only when I'm using my elbow.

My plan for recovery for the next 3 workouts is squats (at regular intensity/volume) and bw chins on all 3 days and one day of press if the warmups go well. After this, work back into bench and deads using the warmups to asses how far I can go.

I was wondering what you thought of this and if you would recommend any changes.

Merry Xmas.

[Mark Rippetoe]

What is your reasoning for 3x/week chins and no deadlifts?

[barbhero]

To be honest, I was planning on chins because they seem to be recommended on these boards for elbow pain and they never seem to aggravate my elbow pain. I thought 3x a week because I didn't think recovery would be a problem with the lack of benching and maybe heavy presses, depending how the warmups go.

I have read about eccentric contractions to help with recovery, but since it's both elbows I wasn't sure about using something like a 2handed cable pushdown and then using the injured arm to resist the bar going back up. I'm thinking now that maybe doing a 'reverse' tricep extension using a band looped over a pull-up bar so that my arms are extended above my head and pull the band down behind my head to get some eccentric contraction without any heavy concentric contractions on either tricep.

I thought to cut out deadlifts because I have felt they aggravate the injury, although again now that I think about it, its almost always after I benched and the pain was already flaring.

Day 1 Squats, Deadlifts, 'Reverse' extension with bands
Day 3 Squats, Press, Chins
Day 5 Squats, Deadlifts, 'Reverse' extension with bands

Using the warmups to gauge pain levels and whether or not to go heavier on deadlifts and press. Look any better?

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'm having trouble visualizing the band things. I have not been drinking.

[barbhero]

So think of looping a band over a pull up bar or something so that the ends of the band hang about a foot or so directly above your head. Then imagine grasping the ends with your hands and pulling them down behind your head, so your arms end in the position where a tricep extension would begin.

If I'm thinking about it correctly, that should give a nice resistance against elongating the tricep without having to do any concentric contractions.

I'm not drinking either but maybe I should start.

[Mark Rippetoe]

You mean like where a French Press would start, only pulled into position?? That would be a concentric biceps action, not eccentric triceps.

[barbhero]

Well I was thinking like that only standing up, but I see how that would be concentric bicep. I'm pretty much at a loss of trying to find an eccentric tricep exercise that doesn't first involve some concentric tricep contraction. Maybe I'm just overthinking it and cable pulldowns with 2 hands down and 1 hand up one would be fine since its low weight.

I could just skip the whole eccentric thing altogether, but I've seen it being cited in numerous places as beneficial to tendon injuries so I've been trying to figure out a way to work it in with the caveat being that both arms are injured.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I think your elbows will heal without any weird arkane applications of internet esoterica. Just train through it.