elbow hurting while doing squats and pullups

[rygamer]

Can you recommend any change in my squat technique to help with my elbow problems. It happens when I'm trying to pitch the weight against my shoulders. As the weight gets heavier it hurts even more.

[Stephen Vajda]

I don't know if its the same thing I got but I stopped pull ups 3 months ago, it go worse, starting interfering with everything, and I figured out (with help) that I got golfer's elbow from bending my wrists doing squats. I stopped that, did a bunch of other stuff, and its getting better.

[Mike Troxell]

Can you recommend any change in my squat technique to help with my elbow problems. It happens when I'm trying to pitch the weight against my shoulders. As the weight gets heavier it hurts even more.

This is specifically addressed in the book, bents wrists intercept some of the load and will cause elbow pain.

If you have a physical limitation, I would recommend wrapping the wrists. I can not give you the "why," it was recommended by an SS coach. I used wraps until I could maintain a straight wrist through the entire squat, my pain did decrease.

[BDorff]

Another thing to watch for is putting too much focus on the 'elbows up' thing. You can put a huge amount of torsion on your elbow tendons... that's what I did and spent most of the last year trying to fix it. Watch for that, and try wrapping your forearm just below the elbow to change where the tension gets placed while it cools off.

[julianwlsn]

Leads me to believe that your wrist position sucks as troxm said. If you can, go a little wider until you can get your wrists is a better position (straight or close to it) and just really focus on keeping the chest up since it will be a little more difficult when it's wide like that.

[TwoFours]

Hey Ronin,

I know how you feel. This shit sucks. I dealt with it off and on for a couple years. It would hold back my bench pressing and pressing. It would turn on some things in my shoulder that I wish I could have avoided turning on. I'm going in for surgery next Thursday because I think I turned on that inflammation due to trying to fit a model of a grip that I could not fit way too many times.

Your grip in the opening post reminded me of my grip. From the side view, I could see that your are having the same issues I had.

For the cool people, elbows up makes their chest go up. For us not so cool people, lifting the elbows makes the chest go DOWN; so naturally, to maintain a good chest up position, we let our elbows go down. But what happens to our arms when the heel of our palms are on the bar with a thumbless grip and we let our elbows go down to maintain good spinal position?

WHAT HAPPENS?

Arm cancer...that's what happens. Bicep pain/brachialis pain. So bad that you want to punish someone for doing it to you....but the thing is, you did it to yourself. The grip model was not for you. I remember asking Rip about this way back before I really got into this (probably close to when StrengthMill became StartingStrength), he said, "If you can't do the grip, you can't do the LBBS." Thinking back to this now, I LOL because you most certainly CAN do the LBBS. You just shouldn't do it with the grip in the book.

Here's what you do. Buy some good wrist wraps (I like Titan's Signature Gold and Mark Bell's Gangsta Wraps). Wrap your wrists semi-tight. Not as tight as you would for a bench press but still tight. Grab the bar about a finger width or two wider than where you would bench press. Use your thumbs to grab the bar. Get under the bar and slide it down to the proper placement. Your wrists will bend.Then when you are there slide it down a tiny bit more all while squeezing the crap out of the bar and squeezing your upper back musculature hard getting your chest up. Then slide the bar back up to the proper placement without letting your back relax. Get a big breath and unrack the bar.

I made no mention to where your elbows should go. That's because when you squeeze your upper back hard getting your chest up, your elbows will go where they are supposed to. Your back will hold the weight because you will actually be able for the first time to actually get your back tight without fighting with your bicep tendons or pec tendons. Your wrists will be compressed but not nearly to the degree people think. It will be similar to the degree that your wrists are compressed in a bench or a press. Its no big deal.

Switching my grip, I avoided the arm cancer for 6 months and counting and added 30 lbs to my unwrapped squat (currently 540 lbs). I don't have carpal tunnel and my wrists are fine. But the years of thumbless took its toll on my shoulder. I struggled off and on with shoulder problems trying to fit my square peg into a round hole....until it finally said enough earlier this year. I tried rehabbing on my own and though I've regained a ton of strength in my shoulder, it is still just fucked up from chronically torturing it. Now I have to get it fixed.

Don't do that. Don't be me. Hopefully, I can save you from getting your shoulder fixed 5 years from now.

this worked wonders for me

[TwoFours]

Here's a video of Sioux-z Hartwig doing the setup I speak of:



She gets really close gripped but obviously you will grip it where it works for you. Looking at your current grip, I'm thinking at first you will be able to do the bench width grip.

I don't matter-of-factly agree with Matt Gary that this is "the best" set up BUT it is a very good and very common set up used among powerlifters. Its always good to have options, right?

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