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Kettlebell How to heal pain in forearm

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Anders

Anders

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Hi.

I am having pain on the inside of my left forearm. From what I read this is often referred to as golfer´s elbow. I probably got it from doing the kettlebell with 24 kilo way too early in addition to doing a lot of pull-ups way to quickly.

Have people any experience with how to get over it as quickly as possible ? Should you train around it, or give it complete rest ?

Any exercises that people found very helpful ?

Would be grateful for all answers.


Anders
 
I’m quite experienced in pain. So here’s my 2 cents.
Never move into pain.
Get a second opinion, preferably from a Health professional. Although, noted that you have self-diagnosed and golfers elbow is easily diagnosed. So I’d imagine a physiotherapist could advise reasonably quickly.
The general advice is to rest and manage the symptoms, but because I know nothing about you, or potential allergies, I shall remain generic.

I had bursitis in my elbow and nothing except rest fixed it. I moved my training to other stuff.

Since then I’ve developed a mindset to move on with other stuff to train when one area is injured. It’s funny how one always seem to seek additional training when we’ve been prescribed something simple (think S&S). Here’s your opportunity to work on something else.

Your call, but I wouldn’t train it until the diagnosis is confirmed and you have some handle on a prognosis.
 
You need to work extension. So you can buy ironmind expand your hand bands or go old school and fill a bucket with rice. Put your fist into the rice, nice and deep and open your fingers and repeat.
 
Anders said:
Hi.

I am having pain on the inside of my left forearm. From what I read this is often referred to as golfer´s elbow. I probably got it from doing the kettlebell with 24 kilo way too early in addition to doing a lot of pull-ups way to quickly.

Have people any experience with how to get over it as quickly as possible ? Should you train around it, or give it complete rest ?

Any exercises that people found very helpful ?

Would be grateful for all answers.


Anders
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What were you doing with the 24kg?
 
I’ve never had forearm pain from Kettlebells
Or chins or pull ups. I properly messed up my right forearm once doing wrist curls with a thick handled dumbbell. I own those ironmind bands but I rarely use them. I train grip quite a lot however.
 
Hello,
I've the some problem.
Ice can help. But the best thing for me is massages with stick massage. It helped me to heal tennis elbow, and now it's helping me with golf elbow.
Don't exercice with KB for a while... Except light / medium two hands swings, they are not that hard on the grip.
 
I did exactly what you did last year. There’s tons of options and opinions on what to do. Basically you went too hard too fast and your tendons aren’t as strong as your muscles YET! Mini sledge hammer pronation/supination, hangs, towel hangs, etc. I went back to SnS and tried to own the 32k better for a while, even did a run of soju and tuba on it. When i came back to ROP with the 24k a year later, i was ready to go.
Another thing that was causing me issue was poor pull up form. I’ve since moved on to doing 1-2 super strict, “good form” pull ups.
That’s all just my experience though, finger extensions are good too i try to juat do it “naked” as a type of stretch throughout the day.
 
I'll second (or third) training extension, but for me the big one was massaging the forearms. Get some fisiocreme and olive oil or baby oil, rub the cream on then follow with a bit of oil and massage for 5-10 minutes. My physio said my forearms were like rocks when she first massaged them, she said to massage to release tension and then when they are warmed up to stretch the extensors in particular.

I'm still working through it on and off now, so YMMV
 
What worked best for me was using a wrist roller (wooden dowel with a rope and weight) and a light weight (anything from 2 lbs working slowly up to 5-10lbs). Pronation/supination with a small mace (one from the hardware store works fine or even a frying pan or light dumbbell/clubbell).

If the issue just appeared recently, you might be able to just rest it for a week or so and get back to training. If it's been lingering a long while, you might need some rest, removal of any aggravating exercise and then a rehab protocol. Massages, stretching, extensor work and direct work towards the affected area (mostly flexors in the forearm).

If rested and treated properly it can heal quite fast. If not it can be months or even years.

Steven Low (Overcoming Gravity) has a great article where he talks about tendonitis and golfer's elbow. He uses wrist curls with dumbbells, I personally preferred the roller. I also have a FlexBar (for the Tyler twist) that I also don't enjoy as much for the rehab, I use it more for a warm up.

Good luck with your rehab!

EDIT: I've seen people do hangs with a chin-up grip (or mixed, one side pronated one side supinated) to strengthen the area and even rehab. When I tried it, it seemed too much too soon while I had pain but seemed to help strengthen it once past the acute stage.
 
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LarryB said:
Mark Ripitoe Protocol
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I'd be very careful about such a strategy (EDIT: what he recommends at the end of the clip). If chin-ups or pull-ups gave you the issue, thinking that doing more will fix it might not be the best idea. But hey, it's just my personal opinion based on my personal experience with the tendinopathies I've had and the one I'm dealing with now.

I'm all for working the area, but you can make it worse by working it too much.
 
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@LarryB from my understanding, tendons can be in various stages: healthy, reactive, disrepair/degenerative.

Working a tendon that is in the reactive stage can make it worse, the same as overworking a healthy tenon. Overworking a tendon that is reactive seems to have made it last longer in my case a lead it to being in disrepair and degenerative. The portions that are in disrepair/degenerative state need to be worked in order to repair and realign. Rest can let the portions that are reactive get back to normal, but they still might need strengthening after to tolerate the workload you were trying to impose on them. Rest will do nothing for the disrepair/degenerative portions.

This is just my understanding from all the different sources from which I gathered information about tendinopathies. It also reflects my personal experience in dealing with many tendinopathies over the years.

Finding the right load and applying it at the proper time seems to be key. Stimulating the healing doesn't necessarily need a high load.
 
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Benjamin Renaud said:
I'd be very careful about such a strategy (EDIT: what he recommends at the end of the clip). If chin-ups or pull-ups gave you the issue, thinking that doing more will fix it might not be the best idea. But hey, it's just my personal opinion based on my personal experience with the tendinopathies I've had and the one I'm dealing with now.

I'm all for working the area, but you can make it worse by working it too much.
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I caused this issue a couple years ago by doing chin ups when I was at my heaviest and out of shape, and for 12 months nothing I did helped more than a day or two of reduced pain. It hurt so bad I couldn’t use a door knob because of the pain. I did this pin firing technique and the pain was totally eliminated within a couple weeks.

It sounds insane, I agree…but it WORKED like a charm with me and I always recommend it now.
 
Benjamin Renaud said:
I'd be very careful about such a strategy (EDIT: what he recommends at the end of the clip). If chin-ups or pull-ups gave you the issue, thinking that doing more will fix it might not be the best idea. But hey, it's just my personal opinion based on my personal experience with the tendinopathies I've had and the one I'm dealing with now.

I'm all for working the area, but you can make it worse by working it too much.
Click to expand...
I don’t disagree, and should have added a disclaimer. Not something i can personally attest to, but i have friends and seen a lot of positive feedback on it. I like the sledgehammer pronate/supinate
 
BJJ Shawn said:
I caused this issue a couple years ago by doing chin ups when I was at my heaviest and out of shape, and for 12 months nothing I did helped more than a day or two of reduced pain. It hurt so bad I couldn’t use a door knob because of the pain. I did this pin firing technique and the pain was totally eliminated within a couple weeks.

It sounds insane, I agree…but it WORKED like a charm with me and I always recommend it now.
Click to expand...
Ya, i was actually thinking of you @BJJ Shawn when i posted that. Another friend of mine used it too.
 
Like I mentioned in my earlier post, such a strategy might work wonders when the issue is in degenerative and disrepair stage, not necessarily in the acute/reactive stage. I think this is where the difference resides with the approach one should take.

But again, this is just based on my personal experience with why something worked once but not the other time with my issues.
 
Benjamin Renaud said:
You mean just doing tons of work to the area for a couple of weeks?
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Doing the Mark Rippetoe program mentioned in the article posted, which he calls pin firing. Basically 2-3 days a week, I did 1-2 chin ups EMOM for 15-20 minutes. Hurt like hell the first time, less so each time did it. After a couple weeks of doing it I got distracted with life and couldn’t get around to it for a week but realized the pain was gone when doing other things. I planned on continuing to do it, but I didn’t have to as the pain totally vanished and has been gone for most of the last year.
 
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