Golfers Elbow Just As I Was Getting Back Into It

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harmonmarie

New member
Kinda a precarious financial situation these days, and schedule's consequently hectic - balancing between trying not to end up homeless, and preparing myself for that worst-case scenario. So I told myself while handling that, just work pullup negatives throughout the day to get pullups back, at least. Add in a more complete routine when things calm down a bit.

Over the course of ~2mos, I was back to doing sets of 3 neutral grip pullups on demand, throughout the day. Wonderful. And I was looking into program setup, because I finally could. But, golfers elbow kicked in, maybe two weeks ago. Been doing some research on the subject as I could, and now I'm coming to this community for help/advice.

Problem: Make a program to both work around my elbow pain, and to help heal it. Bonus points if I can take this time to build up/bulletproof my joints in general! Limitation: can't afford any new gear, or gym membership. Gotta use what I got so far. I have a bit, though.

What I have access to:
  • 2 adjustable Bells of Steel kettlebells. Max weight 32kg, minimum weight either 8 or 12kg. Comfortable w/swings, not slick w/more advanced movements.
  • 2 pairs of gymnastics rings
  • 1 set of Bells of Steel resistance bands
  • a pretty slick calisthenics park a couple blocks from me. It's got monkey bars, a dip station, parallel bars, row/pushup bars, a "metal ladder" (think human flags), and just so many pullup bars.
What I'm doing:
  • gotten a recommendation to just do a bunch of hangs, maybe progressing into straight-arm work - levers, skin the cat, the like. Definitely been doing the hangs, not sure about the rest of it.
  • messed around w/pushups. Not sure about the form, but I can definitely do a full pushup, on the floor, w/o significant effort.
  • brachiation - I love doing it, haven't stopped it, not sure if it's hurting me or not. Definitely doesn't feel like it
  • about once a week or so, I test my pullups/chinups. Just a rep or two, to see if the pain's gone. Still hasn't :'(
Resources I've looked at:
My ideas so far:
  • start the kbogea squats thing ASAP
  • hangs can't hurt, take this subs advice for what else I can do for bar-work - brachiation, skin the cat, scap pulls, so on
    • ditto for rows and pullups negatives - if you tell me to just hammer those on the rings, I'll get to work. Think I should lay off? I will.
    • ditto again for pushing. Think I'm a wuss who shoulda been pushing? You tell me what progression and I'll get cracking. "No way, justquestionsbud, leave those pushups for later!" was more along what you had in mind? Done.
  • all the dumbbell/hammer/etc. exercises can probably be done w/the bands, right? I guess I could use the kettlebells as well, maybe, especially for the Dodgy Elbows routine. Lemme know your thoughts/approach on this.
    • while we're on the subject of kettlebells, can I swang that thang? What about working to pressing it upside down?
  • like I said, I'm very interested in laying a good foundation right now, since I know golfer's needs months, and I'm just getting back into it. Good flexibility/mobility routines would be welcome - I'd rather not pick em right now, since I'm not feeling too confident in my physical culture decision-making (maybe you've gathered that, by now...).
So, that's what I've got, so far. Lemme know what you think of all this, and what needs doing.
 
@harmonmarie Flexbar helped mine, plus changing my grip. Jeff Cavaliere did a good vid on this.
Basically if your grip is too shallow or should into your fingers, especially in your ring finger, your forearm tendon is really going to bear the brunt of the strain.

His advice, which I now follow on this, is to really make sure you grip across the top of the palm and don't let the grip slip into the fingers. It hasn't cured my golfers but with that and the Flexbar it has definitely reduced the pain significantly to manageable levels.
 
@harmonmarie I was getting golfers elbow a few months ago from weighted pull-ups (+70lbs) and forehand throwing in disc golf. Started stretching my wrist and forearm more, stopped doing pull-ups, and only threw backhand in disc golf. I’m virtually pain free now after 3 months. I still did bicep curls, hammer curls, tucked body weight rows, pelican curls, push ups, incline dumbbell press, hand stands, front levers, tucked planche, shoulder presses and weighted dips. The advice I took was don’t take a break from lifting and do everything except the critical aggravation movements (for me pull-ups and throwing shit too hard). I’ve still been progressing in everything still except weighted pull-ups and my elbow feels sooo much better. Also, I try not to sleep with my elbows bent or hold them too long in a full bent position. This is anecdotal, but it’s working for me!
 
@harmonmarie Nearly fixed my golfers elbow after pushing weighted chin ups at the start of the summer (+40kg). Made the mistake of thinking the pain in my forearms was DOMS and not tender tendons...

1st and most important: work around it. I started squatting again, really working on super controlled and slow ring dips, pull overs (straight arm). Whatever. Just find movements that don't hurt it so you don't get bummed out.

2nd and just as important: start rehab. It seems like there's a lot of different advice out there. I tried all sorts of different movements and weights but nothing worked like negative curls. I swing a 10kg dumbbell up (started with 3kg, figured I'll be fixed by the time I get to 15kg) and do a very controlled 3 second negative. There is mild pain the first few reps and then it switches to discomfort. I do at least 5 sets of 10 reps 3x per week.

3rd start bringing pull ups and rows back into your workout. Low reps. It's okay to work through a little bit of pain. The most important is that it is not more painful the day after the workout.

Tendon injuries are a unfortunately a very long process and jumping back in to volume and intensity before you are ready can undo weeks of rehab in a session. So just take your time and find joy in other movements. But fear not, you can fix it. Just make sure you are looking at the process as months and not days.
 
@harmonmarie Long time golfer's elbow sufferer and it still comes up occasionally. After wasting a lot of time on trying to get back to.pullups I more or less discovered by accident that if I do false grip pullups - very exaggerated false grip with basically the wrist taking all weight, I had no issue. Try and see if this works for you as well. Once you have healed up you will find that your normal pull-up numbers have gone up as well.
 
@harmonmarie Drive with index finger. A lot of times with rows or pull ups, we will drive with the hand not focusing on any fingers. This will put the focus on the middle or ring finger. If you learn to drive with the index it will help prevent future golfer/tennis elbow issues.

As far as working around. The general advice goes like this: Anything that agitates, don’t do. If the movement doesn’t flare it up, go ahead.

Also see a PT if you can afford it. If not, watch YouTube, there is some simple stretches you can do throughout the day that will really help.
 
@harmonmarie Not sure but the same Internet is complaining about golfers elbow an awwwwful lot...

Here's the Jeff Cavaliere vid I mentioned elsewhere which gives a really good explanation of the issue
 
@harmonmarie 😁 - I edited the comment to include the Jeff Cavaliere vid, I don't work for him or anything 😂 but his explanation really makes sense. This is an 'overload' injury rather than an 'overuse' injury
 
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