ExRx.net

Over the past two months it has been nagging me. Sometimes more and sometimes less. I'm not sure whether it's the muscle or the tendon, got the name by looking at illustrations like this one


It is annoying during curls, but feels more acute during hammer curls. It is preventing me from having a satisfactory back workout. It's really annoying as I'm not even aiming at very high intensity, just your regular 3x8-10.

About a month ago I took 7 days off. Then came back and worked biceps and back super lightly. It was fine. Until I cranked up the weight.

How have you dealt with issues like that?

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I worked light and stopped playing tennis for a few weeks.
It went away after 3-5 weeks
Mine started from a combination of taking farmers walks too far, playing tennis after not playing for awhile, clean and press puting the weight back down ackwardly.

Or some combination.

Hammer curls are the worst, but I certainly feel it during back work. If I go very light on back is there even a point of doing it? Should I keep chest work intense or also go light?

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try training your back with a seated row, using an overhand grip.

I do that. Pretty much anything involving biceps either niggles or hurts. The only thing that affects it is weight loaded.

I created this thread because my back became much stronger than my right brachioradialis allows. I tried training through the pain and it didn't work. So if I'm doing like 60-70% of training weight for back--is there a point? should I do 3x20 sets? (I usually do 3 vertical and 3 horizontal pulls).

I found some some info online that recommends doing high volume of hammers and reverse curls with minimal weight both isometrically and eccentrically. Go up very slowly. Rehab can take 2-6 weeks.

How would you go about back and chest in the meantime?

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I don't think there's any way really to train your back now except with straight arm stuff and it'll be hard to build a whole workout around that.

I'd just train the crap out of your legs for the next month or so. Maybe invest in some resistance bands and do some light stuff with them.

I feel like cursing, but not sure what's the policy here!


And how about chest? do I stop not to develop imbalance?

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I'd train your chest still, but I'd add loads of filler exercises like prone Ys, external rotations, YTWLI, straight arm pulldowns, prone trap raises etc. Do them in between sets of chest and you should be alright.

Thanks for these!

If you think of other fillers please post them here. I'm gonna go get started.

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Try underhand rows, chins and concentraition curls. The brachioradials comes into play more when your hand is prone. I do reverse curls and hammer curls specifically for this reason ("fills the gap" for my short biceps). Also, use higher reps and lighter weight. I find the muscle is quite easy to overtrain and especially the joint. After doing heavy, low rep reverse curls for a few weeks I start to feel a bit of pain so don't do that often.

From your experience, how long does it take to get back to normal? I am currently doing high vol rehabilitative work like you mentioned.

Also, would you suggest doing the reps VERY slowly (both concentric and eccentric)? Found some stuff online that suggest either going very slow or even holding an isometric position at various angles. In both these scenarios I'm feeling a pinch in the afflicted arm even with VERY light weight.

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I've never had an injury so I can't comment, but I get that feeling that if I carry on I will injure myself. Sort of like an overtraining thing. For high rep stuff I normally go quite fast and bash out as many reps as possible. If it was hurting to the point where I needed really light weight, I'd do 20+ reps, light weight explosively. Sometimes I finish a workout like this if my arms are feeling dead from the compounds.

Using an underhand grip shouldn't hurt much at all though, especially if the weight isn't heavy. If every grip you try hurts it in some way, I'd just completely stop any work that uses your biceps for a few weeks. It's better than dragging an injury out. You could still do pullovers and deadlift variations for some back work.

I'm guessing it's not BR, but the origin of the extensor tendons, called in the vernacular, "tennis elbow".

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

I'm having really bad problems with this area in both of my arms myself. Rest really never helped me either, because they would easily come back.

Someone suggested rolling them with some pvc pipe/lacrosse ball/etc. helps and I've been doing that while still not putting them under too much load and I think it's been helping a little.

Others suggested my form was probably off on my squats/deadlifts/powerclean (not pushing my arms back and up enough on squats & tryin to pull with arms when coming up) so I'm going really light on these also to try and get my form to an acceptable standard.

You might try that. Just make sure you roll not only the belly (the feel good part) but the origin & insertion point (the feel bad part) as well for maximum effect.

You know, I just followed several "tennis elbow" symptom checkers and performed everything without pain..
Found these posts and the guy describes my problem to a tee. I'll cut the fat out of his post, mind taking a look?

1. "This has been a nagging issue for about a year now, I've seen a PT who said rest it for two weeks. That did not work. My pain is felt around the brachioradialis. Not in the elbow area, but high on the forearm and close to the insertion point. My favorite bicep exercise--hammer curls are causing pain. I get a sharp pain initially even with the lightest of dumbbells and it feels generally weak in the area. After 20 or so reps it seems to get used to the movement and the pain goes away...

2. "Went back to the PT to obtain a referral to an orthopedist. But she pin pointed the problem area and said it's most likely the radial nerve. She showed me some Neural Mobilization techniques and it definitely feels like it's targeting the problem.

3. "Just an update, today I tried out standing cable hammer curl's with the rope and had absolutely no pain! (I have been doing radial nerve stretching exercises so that may be helping as well). It's weird because a week ago I could only use 50% weight on my dumbbell hammers because I was aggravating this problem but now with the cable it seems to be activating the muscles differently so perhaps the constant tension is the best way to approach this...


My issue is that I'm uninsured and in college. It really does look like I have to raise capital for some ART, doesn't it? I tried googling "Neural Mobilization" and "radial nerve stretching," but there's too much info to pick from.

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