Severe Arm Throbbing Pain From Low bar Squats

[DoUrSquats]

Stats:

Gender: Male
Height: 5'10 (178 cm)
Weight: 78KG (171 lbs)
Lifting Experience: 1 Year

1RM's:

Low bar Squat: 135KG (300 lbs)
OHP: 65KG (145 lbs)
Deadlift: 145KG (320 lbs)
Bench: 82KG (180 lbs)

(Started training with high bar squats first, switched to low bar squats around 2 months ago.)

Hey everyone, I am having immense pain during and after my low bar squats while training. The pain is coming from my left arm between the forearm and bicep area, on the left side. pain.jpg

What brings it on?

Low bar squating, but only at a high enough weight, around 120kg (265 lbs) for 5x5.

What helps with the pain?

Stopping the excercise and going home to take painkillers, or wait around 1 hour with the pain until it subsides.

Description of the pain:

It is severely painful, it throbs constantly and is close to making me shed tears with the pain. If I squeeze my arm a certain way (DSC_0069.jpg) the pain becomes very sharp and even more sore for a second or two. There is zero pain in my shoulders, elbows or wrists.

After the pain comes on I need to stop my workout, it is that bad. It's only on the left arm, the right arm is perfectly fine.

Grip:

I use thumbless and straight wrists with no flexion or extension. My pinky is on the 32 inch ring on each side of the barbell. (I think its called that?)

Other Exercises:

No other exercise movement gives me this pain, I can even do 3x5 chins with 8kg dumbell between my feet and there is no pain at all.

I dont want to stop low bar squats, please can you give me some advice to remedy this pain or a description of what you think it could be.

Edit:

While I was waiting for my account to be activated I did some looking online about possible causes for the pain. I noticed that I have my elbows really high and up like this picture > 20160622_two.jpg

Maybe this is causing my pain?

[Adam Franklin]

Do you have a recent video of your squat? And yes, cranking your elbows up high like the picture you linked is not only poor form, but it could also be the cause of your arm pain.

[DoUrSquats]

Sorry I do not have any videos, I'm going to the gym tomorrow again and I will try to keep my elbows down and pinned to my lats. (something I also have not been doing)

[Polishdude20]

I noticed during my latest squat session that if I squeeze the bar in my hands rather than just passively draping my fingers of the bar, that helps. Try and not crank your elbows up like Adam has said and if that doesn't help, try squeezing the bar in your hands. Don't let the weight of the bar rest on your hands though. Just squeeze it .

[DoUrSquats]

Well I tried some fixes:

Thursday:

Tried keeping my elbows down more (not under the bar though), didn't stop the pain.

Saturday (today):

Elbows down like on Thursday and this time I tried to lean more forward at the top of the squat position. As I had noticed that I tend to stand fully upright, I thought maybe the bar was slipping down, but someone watching told me the bar didn't move.

So I still have the pain ;/

Going to rest for 5 days from squats and try again. I will squeeze the bar as well. If it doesnt work I am going to be so upset, I love low bar and was fine up to 2 weeks ago.

[DoUrSquats]

Well I got a form check for the squats today, you can see that here YouTube

I switched to thumbs around the bar and it made it 10x better, just need some wrist wraps to help with the wrist pain now

[Nate9]

Push your back against the bar before the descend and keep it like that, it will create a nice shelf. That's what helped my elbow pain.

[Glendon514]

Hey DoUrSquats, I have the exact same pain. I used to only do high bar squats, until a herniated disc at C2/C3 forced me to change to low bar (in hindsight this is a good thing, its how I discovered Starting Strength). I have not been able to find a fix as of yet. Let me know if the thumbs around really works. The elbow pain prevents me from doing bench on the the same day I do squats, or at least makes the bench terribly painful.......

[pip]

I’ve had similar pain. It looks like a form issue causing the elbow/arm pain. As many before suggested it is pushing of elbows up without really thinking about it. Could also be caused by not getting hips back, upper back rounding slightly on ascent and then the struggle to keep the bar over the mid foot causing you to strain with your arms rather than lifting with hips/back. I used to round the upper back that caused me to get a little on my toes and then struggle by pulling the bar into my back on the way up. This was the culprit for me. Fixing the back rounding allowed me to get out of the hole with hips and back without the bar rolling up my back. No need to use my arms to keep the bar in place when it had a shelf.

[DoUrSquats]

I thought I would give a little update on the situation.

Thumbs around the bar and wrist wraps have totally eliminated the pain. My squat numbers are actually shooting up now. Having wrist wraps and thumbs around really makes the bar secure and I am sure it is making me move more weight now.

All is good again