Help identifying this arm injury??

[Melody68]

I'm 69 and have been taking T for a year and lifting weights for 8 months now. I like the board members here and hope they can help me with yet another problem.

My left arm is my non-dominant arm and if I'm looking at it with a straight arm, palms up, the pain is at the inside crease, but near the outside of the arm, kind of at the top where that meaty muscle called a "brachioradialis" is. It's not the right place for what they call golfer's elbow. It hurts when I do pulling exercises, like curls or rows, with pain that orignates at that spot and runs down that bigger forearm muscle on the inside and towards the wrist. It seems to be OK if I'm doing pushing exercises like dumbell or bench presses. If I had to guess I'd say that I went too heavy on my close grip palms up pulldowns which I was doing for biceps. I do that one instead of going heavy on conventional curls since I find it easier on the elbows.

It's kinda got me bummed out since I had a problem recently with tennis elbow, and that took almost a year to heal.

Any thoughts? Can I train around it, or will that hamper the healing? Anything I can do other than RICE? Thanks!

 

[Vince]

I'm 69 and have been taking T for a year and lifting weights for 8 months now. I like the board members here and hope they can help me with yet another problem.

My left arm is my non-dominant arm and if I'm looking at it with a straight arm, palms up, the pain is at the inside crease, but near the outside of the arm, kind of at the top where that meaty muscle called a "brachioradialis" is. It's not the right place for what they call golfer's elbow. It hurts when I do pulling exercises, like curls or rows, with pain that orignates at that spot and runs down that bigger forearm muscle on the inside and towards the wrist. It seems to be OK if I'm doing pushing exercises like dumbell or bench presses. If I had to guess I'd say that I went too heavy on my close grip palms up pulldowns which I was doing for biceps. I do that one instead of going heavy on conventional curls since I find it easier on the elbows.

It's kinda got me bummed out since I had a problem recently with tennis elbow, and that took almost a year to heal.

Any thoughts? Can I train around it, or will that hamper the healing? Anything I can do other than RICE? Thanks!

These are my thoughts. I'm not saying any of this will help.

For now I would train around it. I had a really bad right elbow could not straighten my arm. My buddies talked me into bowling so I got the lightest ball I could find and used that. By the end of the season I was completely healed, plus I was using a heavier ball.

I don't know if this will help but for your elbow use very light weights.

I did hurt my wrist golfing. I could only do pull-ups no chin-ups. I work out in the morning so at night I would do one painful chin up after about a month I was up to 13.

 

[Guided_by_Voices]

I'm 69 and have been taking T for a year and lifting weights for 8 months now. I like the board members here and hope they can help me with yet another problem.

My left arm is my non-dominant arm and if I'm looking at it with a straight arm, palms up, the pain is at the inside crease, but near the outside of the arm, kind of at the top where that meaty muscle called a "brachioradialis" is. It's not the right place for what they call golfer's elbow. It hurts when I do pulling exercises, like curls or rows, with pain that orignates at that spot and runs down that bigger forearm muscle on the inside and towards the wrist. It seems to be OK if I'm doing pushing exercises like dumbell or bench presses. If I had to guess I'd say that I went too heavy on my close grip palms up pulldowns which I was doing for biceps. I do that one instead of going heavy on conventional curls since I find it easier on the elbows.

It's kinda got me bummed out since I had a problem recently with tennis elbow, and that took almost a year to heal.

Any thoughts? Can I train around it, or will that hamper the healing? Anything I can do other than RICE? Thanks!

That sounds somewhat like what I had which I think was Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. In my case it was the nerve that goes past the funny bone in your elbow becoming irritated and out of place. As with all joint injuries, use very light weights to get blood flow through the area at least once a day. Use DMSO at least once a day on your elbow and arm. Do not strain with your grip when you do pulling exercises as that can reinjure it. Stay with the parts of your workout that don't hurt. Get some BPC-157 patches and put one on the area every third day or so. There are pain creams you can use once the healing is well underway (diclofenac) but I would not use them until healing is well underway so that you don't mask the pain and re-injure the joint. Make sure that your daily activities are not aggravating the issue. For me, I had to have a pad under my elbow when working at a desk and I had to use my other arm to open cars doors from the inside, for example. Hang in there and stay consistent with everything else. Injuries are just part of life.

 

[madman]

I'm 69 and have been taking T for a year and lifting weights for 8 months now. I like the board members here and hope they can help me with yet another problem.

My left arm is my non-dominant arm and if I'm looking at it with a straight arm, palms up, the pain is at the inside crease, but near the outside of the arm, kind of at the top where that meaty muscle called a "brachioradialis" is. It's not the right place for what they call golfer's elbow. It hurts when I do pulling exercises, like curls or rows, with pain that orignates at that spot and runs down that bigger forearm muscle on the inside and towards the wrist. It seems to be OK if I'm doing pushing exercises like dumbell or bench presses. If I had to guess I'd say that I went too heavy on my close grip palms up pulldowns which I was doing for biceps. I do that one instead of going heavy on conventional curls since I find it easier on the elbows.

It's kinda got me bummed out since I had a problem recently with tennis elbow, and that took almost a year to heal.

Any thoughts? Can I train around it, or will that hamper the healing? Anything I can do other than RICE? Thanks!

Hey brother sorry to hear this!

My left arm is my non-dominant arm and if I'm looking at it with a straight arm, palms up, the pain is at the inside crease, but near the outside of the arm, kind of at the top where that meaty muscle called a "brachioradialis" is. It's not the right place for what they call golfer's elbow. It hurts when I do pulling exercises, like curls or rows, with pain that orignates at that spot and runs down that bigger forearm muscle on the inside and towards the wrist. It seems to be OK if I'm doing pushing exercises like dumbell or bench presses. If I had to guess I'd say that I went too heavy on my close grip palms up pulldowns which I was doing for biceps. I do that one instead of going heavy on conventional curls since I find it easier on the elbows.

I would say there is a good chance that you have tendonitis or injured your distal bicep tendon and could have small partial tear.

If the pain radiates and gets worse when doing any of those movements stop doing anything that will put stress on the tendon.

Tendons are poorly vascularized tissues and are very stubborn when it comes to healing which is a slow process.

Give it some time and if the pain does not get any better than you would be wise to see your doctor as you may need to get an ultrasound or MRI.

 

[Mountain Man]

Wow, this is pretty ironic. I have the exact same injury right now.

It sounds like it could be a combination of a brachial radialis tear and cubital tunnel syndrome. There is no way to tell unless you see an orthopedic specialist. I suggest you do that as soon as possible.

You can work around this injury. When it flares up for me, I usually can do curling motions with my hands supinated. Pronating is when the pain can become excruciating. Right now I am doing some light, very light arm work with that on using blood flow restriction bands. The extra blood flow seems to help quite a bit with discomfort, and also with maintaining muscle mass in that arm. The doctor will tell you to rehab it. Stuff that helps me with that discomfort is diclofenac cream, DMSO, and ice. You want to keep the inflammation down but not completely down as the it tends to bring healing. Ibuprofen is OK in the short run, but really shouldn’t be down more than four days five days or so.

Another thing you might want to try to do is to substitute some of your weight training with loop style resistance bands. Right now I am doing rowing, motions and lat pull downs by hooking in the loop bands behind my elbows and upper arms. This completely takes the hand and forearm out of the movement and enables me to get a workout on the muscles that count. It takes a while to get a feel for this, but once you learn to activate the back muscles, only, you can maintain and even build muscle mass with this kind of an injury. Don’t overlook resistance bands, as they are vastly underrated by most guys.

Also, you want to wear some good elbow bands. The best ones I have found are made by Mark Bell, the guy who created the slingshot thing for bench pressing. Google Mark Bell slingshot, and you’ll find his company. I’ve been using the elbow sleeves, and they are by far the best that I have had. They cost 40 bucks and are well worth it. The tight feeling during workouts really helps. I also use a less restrictive sleeve occasionally when I’m not working out as well to kind of give it some compression.

Just to give you a little context as well, I am 71 years old. I’ve been training since 1967 and have been dealing with this injury off and on since I got out of college. In the early 70s, it was permissible to use your forearm as a weapon in football, and my elbows were jacked up four years in a row when I was in college. Eventually we pay a price. Don’t get discouraged, I think at this age walking around injuries is just part of the process.

 

[Melody68]

Wow, terrific help from a terrific bunch, thanks all very much. I've just read the entries and will reread everything to make sure that I'm not missing anything. Truthfully, you couldn't buy this caliber of help . . .

Something also that's extraordinarily helpful, is to have confirmation that I'm not the only one out there who has to be careful, otherwise suffer the wrath of continuous injuries. We're not teenagers anymore, and lifting weights can be hazardous to your health if you're not careful, but at least we'll all go down swinging. And it's nice to know that I'm not and won't be alone . . .

 

[WhiteMale]

Sounds more like tennis elbow to me which if that's the case it's a very long healing time, I've had it multiple times and even once bi lateral simultaneously. Healing time has been the better part of 10-12 months.

There was really no strap/bandage, heat/ice therapy that did anything that mask the symptom. I worked around it quite abit.

If It were to happen to me again, I would obtain BPC157 and inject it directly at the site.