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Hello, fellow trainers! My name is Ben and I was born with f*cked up elbows! Before delving into this topic, I'd like to provide a brief disclaimer that this is NOT a recommendation of how to fix your elbow pain. This is merely my personal journey with my specific joint problem, and how I've gone about fixing it. My hope is that other members of the forum can read this and perhaps share their own personal journeys with their own problems. Knowledge is power, and I can only assume that there are more trainees than just me who are suffering from their own anatomy. It can be a hindrance. It can make performing some of the GST progressions dangerous if your body can't anatomically handle it. PLEASE consult your doctor/orthopedist if you think you have these kind of structural issues. There just might be a solution. And now, back to my f*cked up elbows. To be more specific, I have/had subluxation of BOTH of my ulnar nerves at my elbow joints. If I bend my arms more than 90 degrees, the ulnar nerve slides out of its home in the cubital tunnel and across the bone that is supposed to hold it in place. It doesn't hurt, really. Just some slight discomfort the longer I hold flexion of my arms. It wasn't much of a problem until I started Gymnastic Strength Training. Foundation One is where I began, and things were going swimmingly until I reached the second progression of the push up variation. To begin with, I couldn't get my chest to the bar in progression one, so I thought I would just bend my arms up to 90 degrees, avoid the violent nerve shift (it was worse under load), and I would be fine to progress with that modification. BOY was I wrong. I got stuck doing regular push ups for MONTHS, until I finally woke up and realized that my modified push ups weren't going to help me progress through this program. I use push ups as the primary example, but it was a major set back in my row progression as well. This was enough incentive to get me to pay my local orthopedist a visit. He confirmed what I had already guessed was subluxation of my ulnar nerves. My hope was that this could be fixed with a brace or some physical therapy, and we wouldn't have to resort to surgery. Surprise! We had to resort to surgery. If I were to leave this unchecked, I would eventually begin to lose feeling and strength in both of my hands. So, I could either get it done now, or wait until it manifested later. To me, this was a no brainer. So, I got myself scheduled for surgery on my left (dominant) arm. It was called a cubital tunnel release with anterior transposition. Basically, they took my ulnar nerve out of the tunnel and replaced it outside in a new tunnel made out of excess skin and fat. Yummy. A new discovery was made by my surgeon during the procedure. The lower part of my tricep was somehow wrapped around my ulnar nerve, which may have been the culprit of the subluxation in the first place. He had to make an incision to free the nerve. What followed was two weeks in a splint (which I just got off two days ago). I absolutely hated that thing. Now, the stitches are out and the process of healing is still in progress. I'm still working slowly to get back my full range of motion, but I can already tell that the problem is, indeed, fixed. I will be scheduling surgery for my other arm before the year is out. That's my story, and it's far from over. I will keep y'all updated as I heal and get back into the swing of things GST-wise. I welcome any and all members of the forum to engage and discuss with their own experiences and knowledge. Train smarter, not harder. And most importantly, train SAFE.

Hello Everyone, I want to start Foundation One, bought it and the progressions look great, but unfortunately I have preexisting injuries, which prevent me from starting it. 2-3 years ago I didn´t know much about bodyweight training and just immitated exercises I saw on youtube. I did a lot of clapping push ups and elbow levers (Of course bad form). I didn´t warm up, did it multiple times a day, no rest days. Very stupid. My wrists started to hurt (on the flexor side) but I pushed through the pain even, though they hurted pretty badly. It just was fun to do these exercises. What a mistake! Wall Pushups and Incline Pushups were good and my wrist pain vanished, but I never went past knee pushups. The pain came back. So I did push ups on the fists, which felt better I worked up to close push ups this way. I also worked with triceps extensions and tiger bend push ups, but these hurted my elbows (the triceps tendon). But I ignored the pain. I went to a couple of doctors, made x-rays and mri. They couldn´t see anything, except maybe a mild synovitis in the wrists. But the pain was there and I couldn´t even stand up, while pressing myself up with the palm. I can feel the pain in the tendons, so it´s probably chronic tendonitis (tendonosis). The doctors told me I should rest and don´t do any upper body training, even pullups hurted. So I rested, for 5 months now. The pain is still there. So I followed the advice, Massage of the muscles and light eccentrics/stretching. I´m also wearing wrist and elbow wraps to keep the tendons warm. I ´m not sure it´s the right thing to do. At least it doesn´t get worse from it (I think). My wrist injury happened now more than 2 years ago, but I didn´t rested it consequently back then. Triceps Injury was not longer than a year ago. Both weren´t really acute injuries or accidents, they got worse with the time and became chronic. What should I do for tendon rehab? I´m not able to do most of the first steps in foundation one, because of these chronic injuries. Should I rest even more? Any advice?