Elbow Popping

[Geico]

Hello!

For about a month now the joint on the inside of my left elbow has been popping with almost all pushing movements. The three exercises that make it act up the worse are dips, bodyweight triceps extensions, and pushups. It only pops on the negative portion of the rep, when, when my elbow forms a 90 degree angle. It is not an extremely painful popping, but rather uncomfortable. It happens on 90% of the reps. Is there a way to fix this, because it is rather uncomfortable and the elbow does become sore due to the repeated popping/snapping?

Thanks!

Sam

[Coach Sommer]

Hello!

For about a month now the joint on the inside of my left elbow has been popping with almost all pushing movements. The three exercises that make it act up the worse are dips, bodyweight triceps extensions, and pushups. It only pops on the negative portion of the rep, when, when my elbow forms a 90 degree angle. It is not an extremely painful popping, but rather uncomfortable. It happens on 90% of the reps. Is there a way to fix this, because it is rather uncomfortable and the elbow does become sore due to the repeated popping/snapping?

Thanks!

Sam

Sam,

- Excuse me for being direct, but it was quite foolish to continue these movements for a month when you were repeatedly experiencing elbow issues from performing them.

- You will now need to rest the elbows for at least several weeks. There are no shortcuts. When imprudent decisions are made, there is no escaping the price that must be paid. Next time, check your ego at the door.

- Triceps extensions are a terrible exercise choice for someone with sensitive elbows; discontinue them immediately.

- Focus on building up to pain free pushups first. Then and only then should you proceed on to working dips.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Geico]

Thank you Coach, that's just what I needed! My awesome parents have been telling me the same thing (I'm 14 which I wish solely explained the stupidity :roll:) I appreciate it very much! Luckily I stopped doing the exercises around two weeks ago (so I only continued the movements for two weeks. ) to start the healing process, and will take your advice and rest them for a little while longer. Once again thank you very much, you taking the time out of your day to give me advice means a lot to me!

[Blairbob]

Besides the rest and building up slowly, look into your shoulder flexibility. My left elbow does this but it is not painful. I can tell it's not quite aligned up at times and generally loosening up the shoulder helps a bit. It does not hurt but I can tell the tracking is off to some degree. It feels weird.

When my elbow is like this, I generally have to stay away from ring work or hard upper body work. No bueno. It comes and goes.

Note, my shoulders are pretty much shot. I strive to keep them functional enough and working right. Sometimes there are good days and sometimes they can be quite tight and need dedicated work to loosening them up. Real PITA.

Funny enough this issue also affects with how my hand and wrist feels, especially my left one.

Since I tweaked my wrists about 2 weeks in a bad clean, I can really feel how odd and constrained they seem to move if I pay close attention. They are getting better, mostly with more wrist circle type stuff.

[Geico]

Thank you Blairbob! When it comes to shoulder flexibility, I can do the cat stretch fairly well, and when I stick my arms straight up and back, they come inline with my ears. This is when I "pack" my chin and do not let my head come forward. If I did, they would be behind my ears. One stretch that I believe works your shoulders that I have never been able to do though is where you do the standing tricep stretch and try to grab your hand with your other arm. When my elbow pops/snaps, it doesn't hurt either. I have noticed that the faster I do the movement, the less likely it is to pop (for example if I were to do 50 pushups in one set, it would pop at most 5 times in the beginning only. Yet if I were to do slow negative pushups, it would pop on every rep). I'll definitely check out to see if increased shoulder flexibility will help. Thanks for the help, and good luck recovering from the clean!

[Blairbob]

my shoulder flexibility is pretty good, not as good as it used to be but still pretty decent. I can do a german hang on rings without problem and that stretch on floor is ok (it's never been great as I didnt start doing it till I was in my 20s). pretty good bridge and I could probably OHS arms shoulder width if I cared ( I'm not really a fan of the power or squat jerk )

however, my left shoulder click A LOT with an occasional pop that often feels good as it feels like they open up a bit more after doing so. my left elbow likes to pop occasionally loud without any feeling associated with it. right shoulder has been funny a long time since a partial seperation that ended up with the shoulder sitting lower than it used to. it's weird but fine for the most part though occasionally its a PITA.

still, all in all, i can feel they are jacked up as without taking necessary care they can be really wonky. a real PITA sometimes.

it's not so much increased shoulder flexibility but more of just working the shoulder mobility stuff to get them working right.

it definitely became a chronic issue doing gymnastics, more so a pain in the butt that limited ring strength work as well as how many events i could compete in a day.

things i find that are helpful that then make the elbow feel better are:

theraband small circles, overhead, to side and down in support. theraband/rope/stick dislocates/inlocates and halo's/figure 8s. db overhead lifts with hand neutral. DB swings similar to a PB swing.

Internally rotated swings behind the body with a super light DB. Start with arm hanging and focus on swinging the DB behind the body.

wrist circles

voodoo banding it helped a little but only for a very short temporary period of time

look up KStars internal shoulder rotation stretch on MWOD. I do something very similar with theraband to a sort of tricep kickback

grab a stick or small db and anchor the elbow to your side with the forearm pointing straight forward, turn hand from palm down to palm up slowly. this one told to me by Coach Sommer a few years ago helped a lot to deal with the initial elbow pain in my left

bare in mind, in my younger years my elbow was not a problem. even 5 years ago. it's only been a problem since a grappling hyperextension in a lock