Golfer's Elbow

[Hardartery]

After a consult with Dr Google I have concluded that I have some form of Golfer's Elbow. The medial epicondyle hurts, mostly on the right arm, and when I massage it it feels fine for a bit but then it comes back. I suspect that it is from doing squats combined with lack of flexibility. More to the point, I know some guys on here have or have had this, what do you guys do about it that actually helps cure it? I can move my squat grip out to the collars, but that means being outside the squat rack for squats because my arms hit the spotter bars before I hit the bottom position and tagging spotter arms with my forearms messes me up on the rep(s).

[MarkKO]

Elbow cuffs (no sleeves) can help, also doing super light DB curls between squat sets. The grip is the big one, unfortunately, or it was for me.

[mgil]

Sometimes those wraps with the pressure point deal can help get you through some tough bits until things are sorted out.

[asdf]

Wife and I both get it periodically. We've never discovered any magic cure, and we've tried pretty much everything: slow eccentrics, rest, ibuprofen, ice, massage, etc. Ultimately, it slowly goes away. Annoying and frustrating for sure.

[dlocas7]

I developed a severe case of of golfer's elbow in my left arm from doing too much barbell pressing combined with pike push-ups (they put some shearing force on my elbows). I completely stopped any sort of pressing from April to August 2022. Since then, I do mostly dumbbell overhead pressing with short bouts of barbell presses in between. It's a lot better now.

I also have a tennis elbow on the right side that will flare up as soon as I do any significant load of horizontal pressing, especially with a close grip. Again, dumbbell overhead pressing is a lot better. I may do muscle snatches, one-handed presses, etc., but floor presses have an uncanny ability to make that tennis elbow come back in a hurry. If I were training as a powerlifter in a gym, I'd probably be doing a lot of DB benches.

I know that in your case, it's squat-related and you don't have a lot of options in equipment where you train. Cuffs and super-light DB curls may help like MarkKo said. Doing front squats for a while might be an alternative, but if you really enjoy back squats and you respond well to them, you'll obviously want to keep doing them.

[ChasingCurls69]

After a consult with Dr Google I have concluded that I have some form of Golfer's Elbow. The medial epicondyle hurts, mostly on the right arm, and when I massage it it feels fine for a bit but then it comes back. I suspect that it is from doing squats combined with lack of flexibility. More to the point, I know some guys on here have or have had this, what do you guys do about it that actually helps cure it? I can move my squat grip out to the collars, but that means being outside the squat rack for squats because my arms hit the spotter bars before I hit the bottom position and tagging spotter arms with my forearms messes me up on the rep(s).

I've dealt with this a bunch and got physical therapy for it. The main exercises that help me are DB wrist curls angled in towards the medial epicondyle, and you should feel that area "working" and catch a small pump there before squats. DB or KB pronations and supinations helped as well, and putting a light thin band across the j-hooks then doing 10 pronations gripping the band (basically trying to twist the band up) followed by a static hold in pronation. For the banded thing I try to set up with a similar height and joint angles as my squat position. Sets of 10-12 with a squeeze at the top of each rep for all of these are what was assigned to me, and I did it 3x/week, but tapered down as the elbow got better. When the elbow starts to hurt again, I'll reintroduce some of these as a warm up.

Shoulder external rotation stuff can help too, but I am laziest about that so I don't have any really good exercises there.

[mgil]

Standing stuff with light bands works well for external rotation or laying on the side with a light dumbbell.

[Hardartery]

Thank you to all for the kind responses. Now I get to experiment I guess.

[alphagamma]

I had been having a severe case of it for 4-5 months since August when I overdid my squats and bench. Even pumping soap out of the bottle really hurt. I tried Rippetoad's chinup protocol but it made it worse. The only things that worked were:

1) Curls. A few RPE 9 sets each workout should be fine. Try to rotate your forearms inward like this shape: /o\ while doing it to hit that painful part of the elbow. Yes it will hurt a lot at first but I got immediate relief from it. If you are using the barbell for curls, using the narrowest grip possible seems to work too.

2) What helped me with the squats was not so much an extremely wide grip width but relaxing your elbows and shoulders. Don't actively push the elbows up but instead try and tuck them down. The elbows need to feel like they are floating instead of being jammed upwards which tends to happen when coming out of the hole, at least for me.

My grip width was probably too narrow (thumbs on smooth) as well so I switched to pinky on rings. I was also doing low bar and it was perhaps a tad too low so I tried moving the bar up a bit.

[DCR]

2) What helped me with the squats was not so much a an extremely wide grip width but relaxing your elbows and shoulders. Don't actively push the elbows up but instead try and tuck them down. The elbows need to feel like they are floating instead of being jammed upwards which tends to happen when coming out of the hole, at least for me.

I post this every time this comes up. Usual disclaimers that Paul Carter mostly is a jack ass and the heavy breathing is weird.

[Hardartery]

I had been having a severe case of it for 4-5 months since August when I overdid my squats and bench. Even pumping soap out of the bottle really hurt. I tried Rippetoad's chinup protocol but it made it worse. The only things that worked were:

1) Curls. A few RPE 9 sets each workout should be fine. Try to rotate your forearms inward like this shape: /o\ while doing it to hit that painful part of the elbow. Yes it will hurt a lot at first but I got immediate relief from it. If you are using the barbell for curls, using the narrowest grip possible seems to work too.

2) What helped me with the squats was not so much an extremely wide grip width but relaxing your elbows and shoulders. Don't actively push the elbows up but instead try and tuck them down. The elbows need to feel like they are floating instead of being jammed upwards which tends to happen when coming out of the hole, at least for me.

My grip width was probably too narrow (thumbs on smooth) as well so I switched to pinky on rings. I was also doing low bar and it was perhaps a tad too low so I tried moving the bar up a bit.

I would have issues managing this. The bar wedges my arms down with pretty much any grip that isn't the collars, in fact it usually takes a combination of sets and weight for me to even get the bar down to where I want it, which is possibly still "High bar" by some standards. I will not touch my rear delts until I hit 3 sets or 315, whichever comes first, and that's with me actively trying to get it down there. I also am pretty sure I really kicked it off by doing some curls. I usually run a little bit sore from the stretch of squatting, and I carry the weight on the delts I am not actively doing anything with the hands or arms unless something goes wrong. I really don't feel or pay much attention to my arms during the squat, it's really just a stretch for them to combat arthritis related loss of ROM. I have been pointer on the rings, which is a finger wider than my Bench grip and much narrower than that would be unsustainable shall we say. I worry that I am going to have to move the grip out, which means collars because the rack is in the way for other grips.

Curls with DB's or a bar? My arms have no choice but to be pointed in with the EZ curl bar and I never understood curls with a straight bar - they hurt in a bad way. Keep in mind, I almost never do any actual biceps work and never really have for any length of time. Randomly throwing in a few sets of curls the other day on an off day just seemed to piss off the forearms even more than usual. I miss being young and flexible.

[James]

You know it might be that even though you don't do direct biceps work normally that you're arms are strong enough that a few throw away sets of curls was too much to start out with.

Kind of like a cyclist doing some squats all of a sudden and getting knee pain.

[janoycresva]

do you have access to an SSB? if squatting is the cause then that's the nuclear option

[Hardartery]

do you have access to an SSB? if squatting is the cause then that's the nuclear option

I do not, unfortunately. I am using some fairly ghetto stuff, I would have to go through the major headache of importing anything "decent". The real underlying cause is likely the shoulder arthritis killing my mobility, but there isn't a lot I can do about that that I'm not already doing. Also unfortunate. I am pretty sure the curls were just the straw that broke the camel's back, I just didn't know if there was a special stretch that helped in particular or something like that. The leg press does something similar to my quad tendons and it took my months to go away last time I tried that. Getting old sucks.

[MarkKO]

2) What helped me with the squats was not so much a an extremely wide grip width but relaxing your elbows and shoulders. Don't actively push the elbows up but instead try and tuck them down. The elbows need to feel like they are floating instead of being jammed upwards which tends to happen when coming out of the hole, at least for me.

I post this every time this comes up. Usual disclaimers that Paul Carter mostly is a jack ass and the heavy breathing is weird.

+1 for this, including the disclaimer.

[MarkKO]

do you have access to an SSB? if squatting is the cause then that's the nuclear option

I do not, unfortunately. I am using some fairly ghetto stuff, I would have to go through the major headache of importing anything "decent". The real underlying cause is likely the shoulder arthritis killing my mobility, but there isn't a lot I can do about that that I'm not already doing. Also unfortunate. I am pretty sure the curls were just the straw that broke the camel's back, I just didn't know if there was a special stretch that helped in particular or something like that. The leg press does something similar to my quad tendons and it took my months to go away last time I tried that. Getting old sucks.

You could always pick up the SSB strap Spud Inc makes next time you're stateside. I've got one, it really isn't bad.

[Bolder]

I am not a doctor, a physician, or anything. But I remember Austin Baraki from Barbell Medicine was dealing with elbow issues for a long time, on and of, and it's definitely usually from the low-bar squat, which didn't enable him to bench press properly for a while (he also had to resort to doing a reverse-grip bench press). Yeah, from the get-go, I would like for movements that wouldn't irritate the elbow. I have seen Austin Baraki getting prescibed doing lying tricep extensions with a thick barbell. Maybe try that, couple it with some bicep curls (the ones that don't hurt), and move on to doing high-bar squats for a while.

However, I am not sure if this is relevant. Any form of tendinopathy is best handled with heavy slow resistance training (starting with high reps low weight, then working down to low reps heavier weights over the weeks which could last you around 12 weeks). Probably do heavy slow resistance training while performing tricep extensions thick barbell or whatever thick you can handle, do em 3 seconds down, and 3 seconds up.

[SeeMac]

I've had many bouts of golfer's elbow. Reverse tyler twists with the flex bar thing work.

My most recent battle with it wasn't improving with the twists, so I implemented this routine (https://drjuliansaunders.com/ask-dr-j-i ... revisited/) plus finger curls.

TLDR:
The medial epicondyle has a weird shape and bears load from different muscles. So do all of these.
Do the following exercises with varying degrees of elbow bend, find which one hurts the most, and use that angle.

- DB Wrist Curls - 3 sets of 10-20 reps (I did 3-0-3 HSR instead of eccentric only, but eccentrics are probably fine)
- Pronator Teres Eccentrics - 3 sets of 10-20 reps (I did eccentrics here, since concentric feel very weird and give me a jolt)
- BB Finger Curls - 3 sets of 10-20 reps

I did this 3 times per week supersetted with my bench training. The article recommends daily I believe. Cleared up in about a month or so after having a 4-6 month bout with it.

Also note that I don't low bar squat, but I do know that I've tried low bar while dealing with golfer's elbow and it hurt like hell. Although my form was probably terrible. If low bar bothers it, I'd probably avoid those and do high bar or front squats for a bit. Compressing tendons isometrically with a bunch of weight while they are reactive probably isn't doing any good.

[Culican]

I use the Reverse Tyler Twist with the Flexbar and also do grip work with the Ivanko Gripper.

On the gripper I position my hand so that pinky is near the bottom (widest part) of the gripper. Adjust the gripper so that I can't close it with one hand then use both hands to close it and allow it to open using only the affected hand. Gives a nice eccentric, which I can feel right where the tendon attaches.

Takes about 4 weeks to clear it up.

[GlasgowJock]

I periodically suffer this in my left elbow, probably caused by squatting i.e. hand/ arm position.

+1 for lighter tempo - slow eccentric - pressing work until it clears.

If I wasn't a tight bugger I'd fork out for a SSB bar for my garage gym.