FiftyFive

So i have been lifting pretty heavily for the last 10 months. Over the weekend i developed a very sharp pain in my left elbow. The pain is on the upper outer part of my elbow, sort of under the "ball" of muscle you can get if you flex your arms.

Any ideas as to what this is? I'm hearing all different things, tendinitis, etc.

It only hurts when i start to go past a 90 degree angle with my arm. It is very sharp and hurts a LOT. And i have a pretty high threshold for pain...

TIA!

swoleCL

sounds like a pulmonary embolism.

jk

probly pussitis.

jk. i have no idea. stop so much. and the pain will magically go away

RMATIC09

You may have hyper extended it, or excessive lifting has finally caught up and you need to take some down time and rest the elbow.

You may have tweaked it lifting and not noticed until the pain really kicked in.

Ice it, rest it, and if the pain does not go away, see a doctor.

swoleCL

^^ ftw

FiftyFive

Will do, must be the lifting. I'll give it a week of rest and go from there. Something always happens when I'm making huge gains, Argh!!

mystikk

To gain one thing, you must sacrifice another .. Unfortunately for people trying to get into shape [ me ], this happens a lot.

Pug

Did you notice it happening during or right after a particular lift? If you can isolate the move that caused the pain, you can better understand what's going on, and how to avoid it in the future.

If you injured yourself on a "pulling" exercise like rows or pull ups, then it's probably tendonitis which will suck (I know based on personal experience) because that can take a long time to heal. If it is tendonitis, then you're probably not resting enough - especially if you're going heavy. Once you're feeling better, you should work in a week off every 3-6 weeks so that your tendons can catch up with what your muscles are capable of.

If you injured yourself doing a "push", then I'm not sure what you did - but may want to consider seeing a doc.

808havok_tsx

^ agreed.

my guess based on your description is tendonitis. try taking about 400mg of ibuprofen and see if it takes the edge off the pain or if the pain even goes away. tendonitis in elbows and shoulders are a very common injury with (heavy) pulling excercises. the only way to treat tendonitis is absolute rest for about 2-4 weeks, and get back into it slowly.

FiftyFive

Thanks guys, I'm not too sure how it happened it kinda just crept up on me this weekend, and i dont even lift on the weekends.

It only hurts when i extend it past a certain point (nowhere near hyper). Other than that nothing hurts i can push and pull, as long as my arm doesn't straighten out past a certain point.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Same thing is happening to my knee since I started walking 3-4 miles a day, try stretching more as well as giving it the weeks rest.

FiftyFive

It is way to painful to stretch now, I'll probably try stretching it later in the week.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Yes, what I meant was give it the rest, but before lifting, try stretching it more

FiftyFive

Must have just been sore from lifting heavy, its getting better. Thanks guys!

RMATIC09

wait till it's fully operational before jumping back in there!

FiftyFive

Yea, i think im going to try bench on Friday. Light though. Hopefully everything will be ok, i hate being kept out of the gym.

RMATIC09

I would try doing push-ups before anything else.

blackglass

If you've been lifting heavy, it might be a form issue. Are you doing any lifts with arms locked out (front raises/lateral raises/chest flies etc)? Those put a ton of stress on the elbow joint...I've definitely had a flare or two, but I've been pretty careful about keeping a slight bend lately.