One of the most common injuries or problems you’re going to hear about in the gym is Elbow Tendonitis.
This is also commonly referred to as “tennis elbow” or “golfers elbow” because it’s a common injury in those sports.
Basically it’s a very uncomfortable strain in the tendons of the forearms, just below the elbow, that limits your strength and hinders your workouts.
I have posted up a video on YouTube talking about this and I demonstrated a unique rotational exercise that you can do to help rehab and prevent this injury from happening.
Check it out below…
Watch The Video Below To See How To Rehab Elbow Tendonitis Pain…
Note: if you can’t watch the embedded video clip above,
you can watch it right on my YouTube Channel by Clicking Here
Give this exercise a try in your next workout and then leave me a comment below letting me know how it works for you.
P.S.
If you would like to have me coach you directly and set you up with your very own customized diet and workout program for building muscle, burning bodyfat, and quickly achieving your personal fitness goals. Then you should sign up for the Total Fitness Bodybuilding “Inner Circle” Coaching Club at: www.TotalFitnessBodybuilding.com
52 Comments
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oli
You must have read my mind, I was just about to look for some rehab exercises for this as I started feeling a slight ache in the front of my elbow after performing a set of heavy squats. I researched into it and decided that I may have inflammation of the biceps tendon, which can be caused from excessive pressure on the shoulder joint. Can this exercise be used for both injuries or is there a more specific exercise for this? Many thanks in advance
cobra
thanks for the video
do you got any exercises for a sprained wrist
i hurt my left wrist 7 months ago doing chest exercises
i stopped many lefts to help my wrist heal
but it’s not all healed yet
nate rowand
i have an elbow injury from lifting the only thing is, is that i can do biceps with no problem but if i do bench or any workout that envolves me to push it thats when the pain is horrible
Nelson
Afternoon Lee, I have seen an exercise for Elbow tendonitis. Holding a dumble ( moderate weigth ) like you were going to do a hammer curl. Your arm bent 90 %. Now flare your arm back staying parrell to the ground but keeping your elbows locked to your side. Go back to the strating poistion. Do one side at a time. What do you think ? have you seen this before… Herc.
Jim Borowsky
nate rowand,
Mine is just the opposite. I can bench as much as I ever could, but preacher curls and skull crushers bring on some considerable pain. Hoping this helps.
Rahul
Thanks a lot Lee…something I was looking up on..i do get a weird pain on the underside of the wrist while doing curls. Can something be done about that?
Mark
Great tip…just got the injections for steroids…was killing me for years…feeling better and will definitely incorporate these into my routine…
Randy
I have had that pain in the past, my current problem is a little more severe. I am working to rehab an arm injury, I shattered the radial head in both elbows, simultaneously, a couple years back… It has healed as much as they say it will, but I am unable to straighten my arms now, permanently. I have been slowly working up what I can do, But may have hit a plateau with the strenthening…
Do you think this would help even more? and what other things could I do to get that arm strength back?
Eric
I’ve been doing a lot of deadlifts, one-arm rows, farmers walks, and chin-ups. Whether I’m working my arms, back, or legs — I’m loading my elbows. It’s gotten to where the first set of chin-ups is incredibly painful, but after a few sets my elbows seem to “warm up” and I can do more reps and without pain.
I’m going to try this and see if it helps, but is there anything else you’d suggest?
Ace
Hmmm, I once knew a man from Nantucket that had this problem, I heard he was warned if he kept “exercising” the way he was he could go blind as well…I believe he was charged with animal cruelty for “spanking his monkey” and was never seen or heard from again..( I heard he lives in canada now tho)…LOL …great post Lee…Thanks
Suneet
Its great to see you tend to aspects of fitness and bodybuilding beyond the conventional “lift weights do reps” part
Injury prevention and recovery can be as important if not more in helping us overcome plateaus and reach our fitness goals
thanks a lot lee
keep em coming
kevin
Good post lee i will try it out
thanks
abhilash
thanks for this video lee
Sami
Great idea for supination & pronation of the forearm for reducing elbow pain the strengthening the elbow. Keep posting super videos with tips, really appreciate your advice.
Farley
Thanks for the tip, I will try it. I get tendonitis when I do curls, which sux because how else am I going to build up my biceps? Then it affects most other upper body workouts.
There was a workout you mentioned a few years back using a rubberband to do finger flexions or something that helped strengthen the muscle around the tendons in your elbow. That was pretty helpful, too.
leehayward
Give it a try, it certainly won’t do any harm by including a couple sets of this with each arm workout.
But another tip that you can use is to do a full shoulder warm up prior to every squat workout (i.e. arm circles, rotator cuff rotations, etc.) because this will loosen up your shoulder and make holding the bar across your back more comfortable.
leehayward
This actually works the wrists as well, just try it and see. Another thing you may want to try doing is wearing a pair of wrist wraps (like powerlifters wear) during your workouts. This will help provide support to your wrist joints.
leehayward
Try doing a light tricep workout before bench pressing or any chest exercises as this will warm up the elbow joints.
Also try experimenting with different pressing exercises (i.e. push ups, machine bench press, etc.) even try different angles (i.e. incline, decline, etc.) and see if any of those positions feel more comfortable on your elbows.
leehayward
No I can’t say that I’ve seen this move before, is there a video of this exercise anywhere?
leehayward
That’s what’s referred to as “golfers elbow”, try this rotational exercise for a few weeks and see if it helps ease up the pain. Also avoid any direct moves that hurt. You need to rest the tendons and not strain them any further.
leehayward
This move may help, but for serious injuries and situations I’d recommend going to see a good physiotherapist that’s used to working with athletes and fitness enthusiasts. Just ask around at the local gym, local supplement shops, etc. if you don’t know of anyone personally.
I actually picked up this rotational exercise from my physiotherapist back when I tore my bicep in January.
leehayward
You just answered your own question. The key is to focus more attention on your warm ups. Getting blood flow into the arms and limbering up the joints is what you need to do in order to prevent the pain.
Check out this warm up routine at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q52_IF-qoDc
Winston Holmes
i have i pain at the bottom of my left bicep but only sometimes, it comes and goes BUT it only hurts when im doing hammer curls ? preacher curls are fine. I can work through it with the same strength and even gets less after some sets but i feel it the next day or so. Is this the same thing or have i strained something maybe ?
chris
Great post Lee! I’ll definitely try it!
oldman Joe
wondering if you should be doing these when you are sore with tennis elbow…or should i wait for it to clear up and then do the exercises to help prevent it from coming back again sometime????????
Joe
Winston Holmes
this really works the elbow area, this is a good exercise i tried it today, thanks.
Jorma
Lee:
I tried this exercise as well as the ‘face pull’, ‘shoulder rotation with dumbells’ and the ‘pull with cables’ for rotator cuff/shoulder issues. After just one workout, my complaints about pain etc. in the shoulders were significantly reduced and will keep doing these regularly. You’re right: we tend to have an imbalance in our workouts by concentrating so much effort on the front delts and not enough on the back. Thanks for the tips.
Mike
This exercise does the same thing the Iron Arms device does (that I just happened to get for Christmas lol). If I didn’t have this device, I would certainly do this exercise. Thanks Lee !!
Eric
leehayward,
Thanks Lee. I’ve added in this twist exercise and some dumbbell curls before my workout. Seems silly to do dumbbell curls before doing weighted chin-ups, but it’s the easiest way to just lightly load the elbow to warm up.
In general, I’ve been doing extensions with rubber bands, but I wonder if that’s enough extension work to balance all the heavy grip work?
I found this video of yours about using protein tubs to do a weighted finger extension and I’m going to add these in to my training as well. That ought to provide more workload than some rubber bands.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv3T4UBhwik
You have so many useful videos it’s difficult to get to watch them all. I see you actually have a bunch more that mention tendonitis as well. Thank you for providing so much good help!
Jonel Lonzanida
cobra,
Hi, I’m a certified Physiotherapist and Sports Certified Coach. For sprained wrist, first of all, I would just like to ask the position of your wrist while lifting weights in a bench press? One good tip I can share with you is that when lifting weights in a bench press, the bar should be leveled in your upper chest aligned with your shoulder joint, elbow joint and wrist joint. In that case, it helps you not to strain your wrist as well as you will have a good chest exercise. When lifting, specially heavy weights in the chest, avoid holding the bar in a monkey grip position, because this will give you a full strain in your wrist joint. Also, one more thing is grip the bar as strong as you can so that you can stabilize all your muscles as well as your joints completely. Next, if you’re feeling pain in your wrist, apply ice for 20 minutes after your workout. Add heavy spring hand grips, squeeze ball and wrist rotation both clockwise and counterclockwise maneuver. This will help strengthen your wrist and for preparation for your next workout. Also, light hammer curls and reverse curls will add up to the rehabilitation because forearm muscles are also connected and support the wrist as well. Hope this will help you a lot. Thanks.
Jonel Lonzanida, PTRP
ACE Certified Personal Trainer
CSCS
ACSM Certified
Can Fit Pro Certified
Sports Conditioning Specialist
Trevor
Hey Lee,
Iv’e had elbow pain (now medically diagnosed as tennis elbow) now for about 6 months. Without any therapy or help it of course has now gotten to the point that I have had to put my weight training to a stop (and all other activities) with that being said. I have now started an array of strength training exercises and has gotten about 70% better.However, it seems to have stopped improving. So I am now going to add your suggestions to my therapy.
I will let you know how it works and to see if it gets me to the next level of recovery. If it does help me (Somebody with and extensive injury) others should consider adding this to there list of exercises. I do suggest people let there therapist/Doctor know of any changes He or She makes to there therapy.
Drew
Hi I have done exercises like these for months for my golf elbow. I am a 16 year old pitcher and I really want to be ready for the season. I even tried infrared light therapy too, which helped a little but not enough. I just started to ease my way back into throwing, but the pain is still there. What do you think I should do?
Dan
Drew,
Stretch! I have a repetitive motion injury( Tendonitis) from Fedex. Over ten years, I went through 6 years of strait, maintenance medication to sleep, no stopping pain. As soon as i got the pain under control i tore my tendon in my left arm. Had surgery in april, I was in the gym at the begining of July. I wasn’t going to let it beat me. I research the building blocks of how our body makes collegen and started taking supplements. But the item that helped with the pain the most initially was the stretching exercises. Do them three or four times a day. Now im working on strengthening. Unfortunately now i always have to be really carefull and take it easy so i dont have a relapse.
Nutrition
Stretching
and when the pain subsides in a couple weeks gentle strengthening
Travis
Wow this feels like awesome rehab for golfer’s elbow! Did this exercise just once n i felt treatment. Would 3 sets of 10 every other day be good? In a month or 2 i will post results. Thanks man
Eric
Wow – according to this page my first comment here was 461 days ago.
Since then I’ve added this to my warmup — before every workout I do 20 reps with each arm. I note it in my log as “Lee Hayward elbow twist”.
1. I don’t have the elbow pain now. Don’t know if it was just due to warming up with this, but I think this helped a lot.
2. I started holding the bar pretty near the middle and I’m now holding it pretty near the end. Maybe not as cool as adding a 45# plate, but it looks kinda impressive in it’s own way how close I’m holding the bar to the end and still able to control the rotation.
3. Gotta wonder how people trained back in swordfighting times. Holding the arm stiff and moving a bar around is one thing, but this kind of elbow rotation is a whole ‘nother thing in terms of the stress on the elbows and wrist. Seems to me one would need some serious forearm strength to not accidently snap one’s own wrist while twisting a heavy sword around. I’m curious about this since it’s obviously a problem that humans have trained for since whenever we started picking up heavy sticks to use as weapons.
– Thank you for suggesting this exercise.
marcelinseevathean
Hi Lee/
As far as the rehab exercise for elbow tendonitis is concerned your explanations in the video is crystal clear.I’m subject to a weird and burning pain along my right brachio radialis muscle for quite a long time, especially at the point of attachement between the lower part of the biceps and the brachio radialis muscle that prevent me from executing correctly the biceps curl.Your expert advice and comments, please.
dar. tur.
What do you recommend for shoulder lifting exercise when you have shoulder muscle
imbalance.?
fahad
thank you for the video lee,
but i’m having triceps tendonitis, please help me its been 4 month and i’m unable to continue my GYM routine its really pain full triceps tendonitis, i feed pain while doing push ups, inclined bench shoulder press special doing triceps even with the light weight.. and i’m really scared when some one told me that its permanent the pain will never go ,
please need your urgent feedback
thank you once again
Faustino Ybarra
feels like it works good i will keep doing this excersice. But i have a pain right in the elbow region was wondering if this excersice will help in that area?
leehayward
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If you have elbow tendinitis you can do this exercise on a regular basis. You can even do 1-2 sets as part of your warm up routine before each workout. This is a very light move so you can do it frequently.
leehayward
Eric,
=================
Awesome, glad to hear that this exercise has helped you.
leehayward
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I know all to well about painful bicep curls. I’ve torn both biceps before and had to build up slowly. The key is frequent light training. At the start I would do daily bicep curls with holding a water bottle (about 1 pound). I’d work up to doing 100 total curls per day with that water bottle.
Eventually I’d work up to doing curls in the gym with the 5 pound dumbbells. Again, just doing high reps and frequent workouts to just move the muscles. As that felt good I’d up the weight to 10 pound dumbbells, etc.
But if at any point the exercise hurt, I’d stop. You need to work the muscles but not break them down when rehabing an injury. It’s a slow process, but if you stick with it you’ll make progress.
leehayward
====================
The key is to use exercises that work each side independently so that you develop balance and proportion.
I’ve got some a couple videos you should watch at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCkD_yyBWUQ
leehayward
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While the pain is certainly going to hinder things. It’s not permanent, improvement is always possible. What I suggest you do is get it checked out by a good physiotherapist who is used to working with athletes. They’ll be able to set you up with an injury rehab routine specific to your needs.
leehayward
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It may help with the elbow pain, but the key to working around pain is to avoid any exercises that aggravate it and to let the tendons heal. So during your workouts if any exercise hurts, don’t do it, find another exercise to work that same muscle group instead.
kevin
Cool exercise Lee…Cool gym too…I love the Eric Prydz playing in the background…
pojaman
thank you very much cifoo.. Been suffering for quite some time..i hope this will work 🙂
steve
great tip ….a mate of mine has trouble with tendonitis il be sure to pass it on to him…thnx
Colin
Hi Lee. I’ve been suffering with Golfers Elbow on one side for a few months now. The doctor gave me a steroid injection directly into the elbow which was incredibly painful and hurt for a week! This cured the conditon for a few weeks but then it came back and I had to do the same. As the pain of the injection is so great and really affects my ability to work I was delighted to see this exercise from you.
I’ve been doing it for a week now, and if I can find something at home to use instead of the bar will do it daily. I have to say that after doing it I do notice a real relief from the pain for a few hours, but then it gradually comes back. I’m hoping with time that I will strengthen the elbow enough to sort this, so thanks very much for this workout!!
I find it impossible to do bicep curls or anythign similar on that arm as the pain is just too great. Can you suggest any alternatives to this exercise? I’m not a body builder, just someone trying to lose some fat and get in a bit of shape. Thanks again
leehayward
Colin,
=============
The best thing to do is visit with a good physiotherapist who is used to working with athletes. They can access your injury directly and suggest moves that will work for you and your situation. You should only need 2-3 sessions and then you’ll be able to continue on your own injury rehab routine.
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