Elbows and squats

[toonttm]

What do you make of this? (sorry about the wall of text)

Being in the 40+ group I have dealt with many physio-therapists over the years and always struggle with their logic, I think they (not trying to stereo type) don't understand people lifting weights. Hence I am loathe to use one.

Currently: I stopped adding weight to my squat as I didn't have the shoulder flexibility to get my wrists straight. So I have kept squatting 100kg for the last few weeks while I worked on shoulder flexibility. The squats have 'hit' my elbows but finally I am getting my wrists straight. I ice my elbows after every squat session as I feel they are getting worse and worse. My last 2 workouts I have managed to get my wrists nearly straight, so the shoulder-dislocations etc are working. However, both my elbows are hurting so much I had to go to a physio.

The physio (a much older one than I normally get) spent a long time checking my arm ROM and then told me, it wasn't my elbows..even though that is where the pain is. She instead said it is my triceps which are 'knotted' and causing the elbow pain. She 'showed' me that the triceps are a 'trigger' point.

I must say that I have had this condition before (2 years ago last time, in my 'curl' days) and usually the physio concentrates on the elbow...massage & ultrasound but I always felt that while they treated the elbow I wasn't lifting - hence it cured itself.

Anyway, she proceeded to 'work' my triceps and they did respond with 'pain' when she manipulated them (with a small bit of wood).

So here I was thinking that I had developed bad elbow tendinitis from the poor squat form. Maybe I haven't?

I tried my best to explain a low-bar squat and how the bar rests (incorrectly) on my wrist/elbow. She thinks that as I am coming out of the squat my arms/triceps are supporting the weight hence are pushing. (we didn't discuss any of the other press movements, but I note I can pull pain free)

Does this make sense in anyway to you? i.e. the source of chronic elbow pain being caused by the triceps?

And, do you think I should get some real thick elbow sleeves until I finally get my hands in the correct position? I am now happy with the wrists being straight while squatting but I still have my hands at the outer most point on the bar (my next goal is to move the hands in)

Hopefully this all makes some sort of sense to you...cheers

[Mark Rippetoe]

It is not surprising that an old woman can make your arm hurt with a piece of wood. I have always been skeptical of arkane explanations for phenomena that are more easily explained obviously. Occam's Razor, etc. So I would default to the explanation that most obviously fits the facts. Further, a thick elbow sleeve will wad up on the flexion side of the elbow, thus mechanically "jacking" the joint apart under loaded flexion. I am assuming you have read the book and therefore know that the first manipulation in a grip problem is to adjust the width. Perhaps a video is in order.

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

I had pretty bad elbow pain when I was pushing the bar up with my arms instead of letting it rest on my back. The solution was to stop pushing with my arms. It worked wonders.

[morbidlyfat]

I'd like to share the one stretch that really helped with my low bar grip.

One could call it a "doorway stretch" but unfortunately that term seems to apply to quite a variety of stretches, most of which are different from what I mean. So let's just call it a stretch which involves a doorway.

Stand in the doorway. Raise your hands and your arms like you're ready to start an overhead press -- palms pronated and about level with your ears, shoulders down, elbows in.

Put your palms flat against the outside of the door frame. Keep your forearms mostly vertical.

Push your torso into the room. I found some tendency to try to do this by leaning forward, but keeping the torso mostly vertical seemed to work better. A slightly split stance can help a bit.

Do that for 30 seconds or until your fingers get nice and tingly, a few times a day.

A week of doing that made my wrist and elbow pain go away. Conceivably it could help others.

[toonttm]

About to head back for another session of physio. I have been wanting to do cleans but my hands could never reach my shoulders. She measured a 3cm gap between my hand and shoulder in 'clean' position, today I can touch my shoulders, so some progress.

Re the grip, I have my hands out as far as possible to even get the fingers on top. Now my hands are resting on top, I am trying to bring the hands in, but yes, a video might be best.

[frosty-g]

So here I was thinking that I had developed bad elbow tendinitis from the poor squat form. Maybe I haven't?

I tried my best to explain a low-bar squat and how the bar rests (incorrectly) on my wrist/elbow. She thinks that as I am coming out of the squat my arms/triceps are supporting the weight hence are pushing. (we didn't discuss any of the other press movements, but I note I can pull pain free)

i've caused myself pain by supporting the weight incorrectly as i carefully replace the bar back onto the hooks (i don't have a power rack that i can just walk it into the uprights then set it down from there). it wasn't squat form as such that was causing it, and took me a while to realise where it was that i was going wrong.

[DV]

This really sounds like the regular elbow-squat deal that so many of us have battled. I tried everything under the sun, including the stretches mentioned, the tricks in the book (regarding widening grip etc. etc.). What worked was find the way that I, dumb as I am, could find the groove the bar is supposed to rest in. This means narrow grip and bent wrists for me. Not SS-kosher, but it works.

I.e. you need to play around with grip, to make damned sure the bar is not stressing your elbows. What his exactly means in your case, is for you to find out.

I'll bet you come up with hundreds of pages if you google "elbows" and "squat" on the ss-forums. It's been discussed a lot.

[toonttm]

Yup, I have no problem with the cause being due to the grip while doing the squat. As my shoulders have gained more flexibility and I am slowly getting my hands in a much better position, I was hoping that the issue would magically disappear.

But what has surprised me is the treatment of my triceps to remove the elbow pain. I can not get over how much flexibility I now have. A few days ago, in clean position, my elbows could barely be raised to shoulder height and my hand was an inch away from the shoulder. Today I can put my hand on my shoulder (clean position) and then raise my elbow to nearly vertical. My arms also feel 'weightless', i.e. before my arms always felt as though they were carrying a weight.

So I'm going to give it a few more days and then go back to the gym and see how things work out. I'm particulary looking forward to benching as that is where my arms were causing my lift to fail - to much pain in the elbow region to complete my reps.