Am I restricted to leg days??

JMR

I have been going to the gym for about 9 months and currently do 4 days per week as follows:
Push / Leg / Rest / Pull / All Over / Rest / Rest

I have developed a sore right forearm / inner elbow over the past few months and anything like an overhand pull up has become impossible as it's too painful.

Physio has done all he can and sent me to GP to get a MRI.

The GP said it's probably tendonitis caused by excessive lifting and to rest it and await MRI appointment.

So the question is, am I restricted to leg workouts (excluding dead lifts I suppose) and core?
Anybody ever have a similar problem and what did you do during the 'rest' period?
Currently don't do any pure cardio work as don't need / want to lose weight

colm_c

Can't help with the lifts, but just on this:

JMR wrote: »

Currently don't do any pure cardio work as don't need / want to lose weight

Cardio can certainly help with weight loss, but so does lifting. In fact lifting burns more calories than cardio.

Main benefit of cardio is to make your heart and lungs stronger.

Doing no cardio is ok, but don't not do it because of weight loss.

JMR

colm_c wrote: »

Cardio can certainly help with weight loss, but so does lifting. In fact lifting burns more calories than cardio.

Yeah, realised that sounded wrong after I wrote it.
I suppose I'm thinking that I may introduce some cardio while resting the arm. Cheers

Alf Veedersane

JMR wrote: »

I have been going to the gym for about 9 months and currently do 4 days per week as follows:
Push / Leg / Rest / Pull / All Over / Rest / Rest

I have developed a sore right forearm / inner elbow over the past few months and anything like an overhand pull up has become impossible as it's too painful.

Physio has done all he can and sent me to GP to get a MRI.

The GP said it's probably tendonitis caused by excessive lifting and to rest it and await MRI appointment.

So the question is, am I restricted to leg workouts (excluding dead lifts I suppose) and core?
Anybody ever have a similar problem and what did you do during the 'rest' period?
Currently don't do any pure cardio work as don't need / want to lose weight

Had something very similar from a long spell of weighted pull ups.

I dropped heavy pulling movements that involved elbow flexion but that's about it. No rows for 8 weeks I think but was still deadlifting and did things like facepulls and reverse dumbbell flys

Mellor

colm_c wrote: »

In fact lifting burns more calories than cardio.

I’d love to see your source for that.

As after many sessions wearing a HRM, cardio consistently achieves higher max and average heartrates.

colm_c

Mellor wrote: »

I’d love to see your source for that.

As after many sessions wearing a HRM, cardio consistently achieves higher max and average heartrates.

Plenty of info on it online, here's one article:
https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/fat-loss-training-wars.html

It's a highly debated topic, but the general idea is that if you build muscle, it requires more calories to maintain it, thus you are burning more calories over time.

Hi,

that inner arm issue sounds 100% like golfers elbow (tennis elbow is on the outer side) this is very common among lads doing too many and too frequent pull ups.
It's how I did mine and it took months to get rid of it. At the end of the day, anything with "ITIS" is just inflammation, so you need rest and stay away from the offending exercise, but you can still get away with pushing movements surely, like bench press etc?

stretch your forearms back and front too. when you're coming down on a pull up, the eccentric load affects the tendons more than the upward pull. Too many and too frequent a load can just aggravate then stressed tendon until it tells you to leave it alone. curling your wrist on those last reps, plays a role and does tight biceps and lower arms too.

Ice when it hurts and massage can be quite good.

Mellor

colm_c wrote: »

Plenty of info on it online, here's one article:
https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/fat-loss-training-wars.html

It's a highly debated topic, but the general idea is that if you build muscle, it requires more calories to maintain it, thus you are burning more calories over time.

Nowhere in that article does it say weights burns more than cardio. It just says weights burn more more calories after the session (as does certain cardio). Not the same as weight but in more.

And lifting weights isnt the same as having more muscle. You require a calorie surplus to build muscle. The metabolic load of 3kg extra lean mass is a fraction of the calories required to build it. Would take a very long time to break even let along contribute to a net calorie burn

.

Alf Veedersane

rusty cole wrote: »

Hi,

that inner arm issue sounds 100% like golfers elbow (tennis elbow is on the outer side) this is very common among lads doing too many and too frequent pull ups.
It's how I did mine and it took months to get rid of it. At the end of the day, anything with "ITIS" is just inflammation, so you need rest and stay away from the offending exercise, but you can still get away with pushing movements surely, like bench press etc?

stretch your forearms back and front too. when you're coming down on a pull up, the eccentric load affects the tendons more than the upward pull. Too many and too frequent a load can just aggravate then stressed tendon until it tells you to leave it alone. curling your wrist on those last reps, plays a role and does tight biceps and lower arms too.

Ice when it hurts and massage can be quite good.

Yep. Exactly what happened me. I think it was made worse by my grip (wrist not straight enough) so forearm was being asked to take more than its fair share and consequently tendon took a hammering.

Rest and just dropping that pulling with elbow flexion. Pressing wasn't an issue.

JMR

Thanks Rusty and Alf for your feedback.
I will continue with push movements and work back to pull with lighter weight, gradually increasing.
It does seem to be closely related to wrist being locked in position by a bar so possibly dumbbells will also help

Alf Veedersane

JMR wrote: »

Thanks Rusty and Alf for your feedback.
I will continue with push movements and work back to pull with lighter weight, gradually increasing.
It does seem to be closely related to wrist being locked in position by a bar so possibly dumbbells will also help

I'd say just rest the pulling movements altogether for a few weeks. I tried to just scale it back a lot in the hope that it would somehow get better but it didn't until I just rested it and stopped doing the thing that was causing the tendon discomfort.

no worries at all,

I did mine because I tried to improve my pull ups in the summer as a goal.
Alas, 3 times per week with slow lowering pushed me over the edge.

you'll sort it even with rest and stretching, I thought mine would never go but it will. your tendons can be so fibrous and rigid for example they resemble a phone charger connection, blood flow and age also play a role. A physio told me that despite all you hear about back injury, his bread and butter is shoulders! the rotator cuff tendons all overlap and it's a mine field so be kind to those lads too.

fatbhoy

So how do you stop this from happening, when you want to keep pushing yourself to lift more weight over time?

I've had tendonitis in each of my shoulders over the past couple of years, and resting for many months cured it, but it's come back in one of my shoulders and by elbow.

I've a feeling it will continue to happen. I've been lifting weights for 20+ years, on and off, although it's only the last 8 years I've been doing it all the time. I do about 10 - 12 sets per body part (split into 3 or 4 exercises) and I repeat a body part once every 4 or so days.

I've been to phsio, but I don't fancy being milked of 80 euro every time. This latest guy I've gone to (gone once so far) is talking like I'm to go to him for about 10 times. It's not worth 800 euro to me. I just want some pre workout shoulder exercises to mitigate it from happening.

I think I'm going to have to rest upperbody, and then come back more gradually, and warm up before training upperbody. Legs seem grand.

It's so frustrating, because I lose it so quickly, and it's so hard for me to get back to the level I was at before it got/gets bad.

Alf Veedersane

fatbhoy wrote: »

So how do you stop this from happening, when you want to keep pushing yourself to lift more weight over time?

I've had tendonitis in each of my shoulders over the past couple of years, and resting for many months cured it, but it's come back in one of my shoulders and by elbow.

There are plenty of shoulder rehab (and 'prehab') exercises but not all would necessarily have any benefit. Don't think of it as just a muscle/tendon injury because the solution is in the movement(s) causing the problem in the first place. Figure that out and you can figure out how best to strengthen up the shoulder.

But I like some of these and do them at home as opposed to just before a workout:

https://drjohnrusin.com/bulletproof-your-shoulders-8-prehab-rehab-upper-body-exercise/

I have to warm up for 20 mins with a shoulder/chest drill now before all my upper body workouts and I increased the reps and lowered the weight. I could write a book on shoulders now at this stage but I will say is hang for two minutes every day. at first it hurts but it creates space between your collar bone and allows the tendons to calm down. I got a great book on it, google it, many swear by it. also it strengthens from the blades to your wrists. it made a huge difference for me. most pain is from wear in the supraspinatus tedon being pinched. when you row, curl and bench, you turn everything in or internally rotate/pinch the tendons, so you just slowly work on rolling the lats,and chest (small ball against a wall) and then work on external rotation by strengthening your rhomboids, lower traps and rear delts etc. it seems labour intensive but you get used to it.

a session with a really good trainer would go much further than paying a physio because all you need is knowledge and direction in one hour and the rest is repetition in your own time.

fatbhoy

Jaysus :pac: