tennis elbow

[bench525]

Mark you said you overcame tennis elbow by training through it and it went away. Did you just continue to do everything as normal or did you modify things a bit? Grip work keeps being mentioned as being used to fix tennis elbow but I'm a #3 closer so I don't see grip as being a weakness causing a problem. Maybe some rotation work or extensor work though would make sense. So did you do anything different? Add in anything that really seemed to help? I tried the search function but most of what comes up is to just train through it or take months off. Neither really answers the question. Thanks in advance!

[Mark Rippetoe]

I use chins and deadlifts/pulls. Your #3 is very impressive, but that affects primarily the flexor side of the forearm, whereas tennis elbow is the extensor side stuff. And a layoff never works. Never.

[confuzzl3don3]

Don't know if this would be helpful to you bench, but i previously had a pretty bad case of tennis elbow that would flare up every weekend when i actually played tennis. Figured out it was because i was failing to keep my elbows up at the bottom and was probably intercepting some of the weight that way. After i made a conscious effort to fix this, the pain melted away.

[bench525]

Thanks for the kind words. I got certified in 2003. Did you continue to press while getting over your tennis elbow? Thats what seems to hurt mine but it doesn't seem any worse the next day so I'm guessing just keep plugging away at flat bench and overhead work is what your going to suggest.?

[Brad Davis]

I can testify to the "layoff never works" for issues like these. I had golfer's elbow for 2 solid years, trying to rest it until it was gone. I also tried massaging, grippers, ice, etc. and I don't think they worked either. After I started working it a lot harder, hanging onto deadlifts and pullups, it went mostly away in about 3-4 months. Now, I can feel some pain if I poke that area, but that's it. I've wondered if DL and pullups worked because I was increasing the *static* hold, which seems to me to be a more natural purpose for these muscles than something like closing a gripper. Just an idea.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I had not considered that fat bar deadlifts might work for this, but it suddenly occurs to me. Add this to the prescription and try it.

[bench525]

Thanks a ton for the responses guys. Lots of good stuff in this thread.