Chins Caused Golfer's Elbow, What Now?

[David McClelland]

Hey Mark,

You answered another question I had in the training section about going to mixed grip for deadlifts and you recommended hook grip and it's working great. The reason (you might not remember the thread) I was questioning a different grip was I really screwed up my right forearm back in the day when I didn't know what I was doing, I'm now 46 yrs old and I'm paranoid about my forearms. Not to go into how bad the pain got but I couldn't even lift a glass to my mouth to drink. It took a really long time for that to heal (I figured therapy was a waste) and just the thought of going back to pulling weights with that arm made me cringe.

Now that I'm using SS after a long layoff, I've been using a chin assist machine and in classic SS NLP fashion have gone down in weight every single work out (3x5 2x's/week) until I'm now ALMOST off of it and using bodyweight as working sets. Now BOOM I get golfer's elbow in my left inside elbow which started during a workset of the chin up. The pain then went away right at the elbow as I worked through it anyway for a few work outs (reading about chins healing golfer's elbow on here) but it has now moved halfway down into my forearm and hurts like a motherf*cker.

It then started hurting during my deadlift, then started hurting when bringing my arms to the bar for the squat, and now something like washing my face is almost excruciating. Well I gave the chin ups one last try today and just lowering down into the hanging position hurt like crazy. I worked through it on down to work weight anyway (only 17.5 lbs of assist) and I just could not finish the first set for the pain so I just stopped it all until I could get you to weigh in.

I've searched a lot for this in the threads and can't find my particular circumstance because chin ups caused this, not something else and no one else has complained of it moving down their forearm.
Given the info I've given you, what would you recommend I do? I know you're going to stay DON'T DO CHINS ANYMORE but part of me wants to make SURE you're going to say that or give some other magical Rippetoe wisdom I'd have never thought of.

If I just stay away from heavy chins now I think I can continue my deadlifts et al without it interfering, at least not getting any worse and that is what I am banking on. But I don't want to take any chances on continuing chins using pin fire and ruining that crucial lift. But I will do whatever you tell me to do.

Oh yea and you said give it 3 weeks in the other threads. It's been about that long.

I apologize for being so long winded in my questions but feel I need to give you the info you need to know to make an educated assessment.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Post a video of a work set of your squats that shows your grip and forearms.

[David McClelland]

The squat isn't causing it. No matter what I tried I couldn't get my grip close enough for a decent grip on the low bar squat and it got to the point it hurt my shoulders all the way down my arms so much I had to miss two upper body work outs in a row because of it. I gave up and switched to high bar for now until I can get with a SSC coach in person. I think it's actually both my flexibility and some kind of technique issue.

Nikki Sims down in Atl is the closest I know of and until I can make the trip and if she wants to help me, I'm doing high bar. But that's how bad it hurts, the arm is even hurting gripping for high bar and that's pretty bad and why I mentioned it. Sorry I missed the detail it was high bar.

[AndrewLewis]

Sounds like the squat is probably the problem.

Why do you believe the chins caused the pain and not the squats?

[Pluripotent]

The squat isn't causing it. No matter what I tried I couldn't get my grip close enough for a decent grip on the low bar squat and it got to the point it hurt my shoulders all the way down my arms so much I had to miss two upper body work outs in a row because of it. I gave up and switched to high bar for now until I can get with a SSC coach in person. I think it's actually both my flexibility and some kind of technique issue.

Nikki Sims down in Atl is the closest I know of and until I can make the trip and if she wants to help me, I'm doing high bar. But that's how bad it hurts, the arm is even hurting gripping for high bar and that's pretty bad and why I mentioned it. Sorry I missed the detail it was high bar.

Well, this seems to me proof that your squat is causing it.

[A Schenck]

1)Posts a question directly asking for your "magical Rippetoe wisdom"
2)Receives said wisdom for free
3)Refuses to accept wisdom

Cool.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

My only experiences solving issues like this involve an aggressive high dose ibuprofen regimen combined with STOP DOING THE EXERCISE THAT IS CAUSING SEVERE PAIN. This is especially true when it's an assistance lift.

If you want to keep training your lats there are other things you can do. Chins are not the ONLY lat exercise. Rows, pull ups, pulldowns with various grips, etc. And I'd probably also use straps with these movements as well. You'll get your grip work with your deads.

[David McClelland]

Whoever reads this to approve it, you can delete this thread. For some reason my arm is feeling better today than it has in 3 weeks. I'm just going to give the chin ups a break for a couple weeks and slowly work back into them and be careful not to piss the arm off. I'm then gonna lower my chin up frequency.

Thanks for your time I appreciate it!!

[David McClelland]

My only experiences solving issues like this involve an aggressive high dose ibuprofen regimen combined with STOP DOING THE EXERCISE THAT IS CAUSING SEVERE PAIN. This is especially true when it's an assistance lift.

If you want to keep training your lats there are other things you can do. Chins are not the ONLY lat exercise. Rows, pull ups, pulldowns with various grips, etc. And I'd probably also use straps with these movements as well. You'll get your grip work with your deads.

Thanks for your input Andy. Yea this is the first time I even considered ever doing chins but reading SS it made so much sense to work them into the program seeing how they worked the biceps so well as well and I was killing two birds with one stone. If they cause me problems in the future I'll try something else.

Thanks again!