A few words in favor of the "Pin-Firing Protocol"

[Murple]

Wanted to share my experience for anyone else who might be experiencing issues like mine. I've gone two rounds with tendonitis (neither of them tennis elbow or golfer's elbow), and used something like the pin firing protocol to great success.


First issue started about a year and a half ago. I developed some tendonitis in my knee after a brief, but aggressive stint on an exercise bike. I wouldn't call it severe, but the pain was enough to bother me every day. Mostly it hurt when getting up off the floor or if I twisted it. I gave it a few weeks of rest, which did nothing to help the pain. So I started squatting again. The squatting didn't aggravate the tendonitis, and I was able to get stronger, but it didn't resolve any of the pain.

A few months later, feeling like I had nothing to lose, I decided to try over-working the joint. I didn't want to be on an exercise bike again, thinking that the restricted motion of peddling an exercise bike might not inflame surrounding tissue sufficiently. So I went out for a run. Went about 4 miles (which was stress enough given that I hadn't run in a long, long time), came back with both legs aflame and knees very sore. Two days later, the pain from both my run and the exercise bike tendonitis were gone, and have not returned since.


The second instance was some pretty severe tendonitis in my left wrist. It started after some rock climbing with my brother. He's an expert, so I pushed a little too hard trying to impress him. Later that day, I did my deadlift workout as usual, and not long after that my wrist got really sore. Not sure if it was one or the other, or the combination of the two, but in any case, it hurt a lot. There was no pain in typical wrist flexion, but rotation at the extremes hurt like mad. It was most noticeable when trying to pour something out of a cast iron skillet, the combination of weight and twisting really aggravated it. Took some pain meds trying to get the inflammation down, didn't help. I found some relief wrapping my wrist in a heating pad overnight, but to do that I had to hold my wrist in an awkward position, and half the time it ended up worse in the morning from sleeping on it weird. 8 months went by with no lasting change in the wrist. I stopped training after the initial injury, and didn't pick back up because deadlifting was painful, and getting my wrist into position for a squat was almost unbearable.

Eventually decided to order a wrist brace and heated wrist wrap to isolate it and get some more blood flow in the area. I live in rural Idaho, shipping usually takes a while, so I decided to try lifting again while the braces traveled my way. Squatting position still hurt the wrist a lot, but I took my time getting into position and tried to make sure very little weight rested on the wrist. Deadlifting hurt quite a bit too, and I could barely hold on to the bar for the first few sessions, which started pretty light at 175x5x1. After 4 sessions, I realized halfway through my day that my wrist didn't hurt. Came back after sleeping on it weird that night, but I took courage and kept training. Now I'm 10 sessions in, wrist pain is at 20% of what it once was, and my left hand holds onto a deadlift just as well as my right. My braces just showed up, so I'll try some heat on it overnight and see if that finishes the job.


I'm no "scientist", don't have a ton of experience in weight training or dealing with injuries (other than a back injury that I've managed entirely with squatting and deadlifting), but thought I'd share these two experiences in case anyone else has already or is thinking about trying out something like the pin-firing protocol for elbow or other injuries. It's been a lifesaver for me.

[Robert Santana]

Could you summarize this in 2-4 sentences or less and bullet point your questions.