[sheavi]

As regards the classic eccentric loading exercises such as twisty bar thing. Patients report a mixed response. In my own experience it just made mine worse.  I just did things like kettlebell swings, cleans, presses and turkish get-ups all with a fairly 'relaxed' grip. 

[duncan]

Fiend: print out and laminate Fultonius' post about the difference between acute and chronic/persistent pain. You can add a postscript to the effect that most people do too much in the early stages of an acute injury and do too little when the injury is chronic.


Some mechanicial stress after day 2-3 of an injury is nearly always beneficial for tissue healing. Judging the right amount of mechanical stress is a challenge and may involve a certain amount of trial-and-error. As a rule of thumb, acute injury loading shouldn't hurt, chronic/persistent injury loading should hurt when you exercise (but it it's worse the following day you've over-cooked things a little). There are plausible theoretical arguments, and some evidence, for doing eccentric rather than general exercises for leg tendinopathies but not so much in the arm. I'm not surprised sheavi benefited from non-specific exercises. Some people with chronic/persistent problems may need to be more specific about 'hitting the spot' and provoking pain.


Taping helps some people and isn't cold and wet; ice helps others and is free. It's unlikely either are affecting tissue pathology.

[SA Chris]

As regards the classic eccentric loading exercises such as twisty bar thing. Patients report a mixed response. In my own experience it just made mine worse. 

Likewise. As someone said earlier, do everything you can to release the tension (stretching, rolling, massage) then start rehab. Otherwise i think all you could be doing is causing more irritation.

[tomtom]

Got my twisty bar thing and it certainly works the tweaky feeling bit. But guess I’ll have to persist and see if it helps or not. Reverse wrist curls seemed to. Who knows!!

[Fiend]

For Lagers, as requested:

[webbo]

You could have at least eaten that bogey before posting that.

[tomtom]

Have you had your teeth whitened Fiend?

[Fiend]

7 days of rage now. I've been for a run two days in a row. Appalling.

[Fiend]

Some mechanicial stress after day 2-3 of an injury is nearly always beneficial for tissue healing. Judging the right amount of mechanical stress is a challenge and may involve a certain amount of trial-and-error. As a rule of thumb, acute injury loading shouldn't hurt, chronic/persistent injury loading should hurt when you exercise (but it it's worse the following day you've over-cooked things a little). There are plausible theoretical arguments, and some evidence, for doing eccentric rather than general exercises for leg tendinopathies but not so much in the arm. I'm not surprised sheavi benefited from non-specific exercises. Some people with chronic/persistent problems may need to be more specific about 'hitting the spot' and provoking pain.

Thank you Duncan. The mechanical stress is what I'm curious about with my question to Fultooon: What sort of stress is 0.5kg going to produce?? I put far more stress through my elbows wiping my arse (especially with my guts), let along tossing yet another fucking chicken and veggie stirfry around...  5kg felt like it was vaguely working the areas, but didn't produce any discomfort.

Running produced a bit of discomfort slightly further in the elbow joint and towards the bicep.

I think I'm going to start gentle exercising and climbing on it, as sheavi said total rest doesn't seem to be helping. Stimulation, blood flow etc. Unlike my golfers when I kept pulling despite the pain, I'm going to try not to totally spanner it this time.

[mrjonathanr]

I know how you feel Fiend. My rotator cuff blew up out of nowhere. Pretty intractable so I finally bought some new running shoes.

Now my leg hurts 

[DAVETHOMAS90]

As regards the classic eccentric loading exercises such as twisty bar thing. Patients report a mixed response.

Thankfully, I found my flexbar in a skip! Wondered when I'd get to use it.

My forearm is still sore, though now more a chronic ache. Pronounced "click" from my elbow when I flex it.

I trained yesterday, and the feeling is a little more akin to post training soreness, which I'm viewing as a positive.

One thing I did discover yesterday was a pronounced weakness - more than usual  - in my scapula/shoulder area, and clear discomfort/tightness (shoulder) when pulling my arm across my chest.

My injury may very well be different, but I think that some weakness in the shoulder/scapula has contributed to overloading of the brachioradialis/bicep.

When you're injured, it's very easy to focus on what you can't do, and that's probably because you don't feel in control of it. If you'd had a mega hard session and were really sore as a result, you'd just let your body recover.

When we're injured, isn't it the feeling that we don't know what the reason/cause is, that we find upsetting?

Maybe thinking about the soreness as an unusual response to training - and thinking about everything else you can do while recovering may help somewhat?

Timing is also interesting. After a good summer, I was quite light for me, climbing quite well, but overall, a bit weaker. I think I've tried to hold onto the sense of performing well, and I know that that generally leads to injury!

[Fultonius]

Fiend, the 0.5kg/1kg thing was just personal experience.  When mine was bad picking up a cup of coffee, or getting my phone out my pocket were pretty sore!  0.5kg was all I could manage.

If 5kg is not producing discomfort, then it's possibly an ok weight - I think the key is minimising irritation. Whereas, once it's been 6-8 weeks or more the aim of the exercise is totally different, it's all about remodeling the collagen and promoting some form of inflammation to kick start the  healing process.

Your injury seems not to fit easily into the usual pidgeonhole.

[lagerstarfish]

thanks for the picture, Fiend

made my Christmas

[Fiend]

A pleasure to give something back, given how helpful people have been on this thread (including your latest post, Fultonio).

Gym today.

Bench, overhead press, and dips - felt nothing (i.e. not just no pain, but no usage of the area).

Light rowing - very mild discomfort almost entirely due to wearing compression supports (mostly for warmth and to remind me I'm tweaked, I know they don't give any actual support)

2 x 10 eccentric pull-ups - mild discomfort at the bottom of the motion, again probably a lot due to compression supports.

Tried - very carefully and only once with each weight, preparing to stop at the slightest sign of real pain - eccentrics with increasing weights to test what felt like working the area and what felt aggravating:

1-2kg - felt nothing at all
3-5kg - felt like I was working the area, but no discomfort
6-7kg - mild discomfort in the muscle body near the elbow
8-10kg - slightly more discomfort and a bit more near the tendon / bony spur.

5 felt like a sweet spot. 6-7 felt essentially fine. 8-10 felt like I wouldn't do them unless professionally instructed at that weight.

They feel a bit tender now but slightly better than when at rest the previous days. I know the eccentric testing will have aggravated things but I judged it was worth a small setback to find out a suitable level and analyse the discomfort involved (I'd do the same with stretching and massage too).

I can pick up a coffee cup fine.

The facial expressions were similar to usual and I was wearing a Gorgoroth vest with a pentagram on which might have helped.


P.S. JonathanR sorry to hear you're having to run as well. Ghastly activity. We're chimps not fucking gazelles.

[Fiend]

Muscles feel noticeably better this morning. Elbow tendons / bony spurs a bit more tender (or possibly I'm noticing them more as not distracted by muscle pain), which is sort of what I'd expect after a session like that.

[Fultonius]

What angle is your elbow at?  When I did them, 90 degree bend meant I didn't really "hit the sport". 20-30 degrees was good, and, rather than up the weight too much I progressively straightened the elbow.

I have a sneaking suspicion yours is a strain rather than tendonitis, but who knows. Did you got to the phsyio?

[Fiend]

Physio booked for Wed. Arm was a 90' aye, can certainly experiment with that. Today I definitely feel it on the bony spur. It's starting to feel more like a comprehensible elbow injury now.

[Fiend]

Standard tennis now.

Physio recommended by Spunktonius was helpful and fairly positive. He was pleased I was getting help within a matter of weeks rather than months.

General advice: keep climbing at a low level, avoid complete rest (to stimulate healing), keep gymming, avoid pull-ups curls rows etc, full arm eccentrics with a super-light weight even if I can't feel any discomfort with that weight, massage muscle body, stretching, etc. Standard stuff. I can do that, grudgingly.

Cheers for all the advice guys 

[tomtom]

Sounds like a helpful prognosis Fiend. I’ve got one of those green twisty bars and have mostly been using it morning and evening (for twisting) - and may have seen some slight improvement. Hard to say for me as it’s been a niggle rather than a chronic injury.

[tomtom]

So I think I’ve found the cause of my arm strain....

Lifting our toddler. Been fine this morning until I picked him up and swung him onto my right hip (usual carrying method) and that movement pressed all the wrong buttons in my left forearm.

Only the left as that’s the one I use more (carrying on right side) and getting in and out of car (seen the other thread).

[Fiend]

Okay. I'm struggling a bit with this.

I'm pretty much sticking to the plan, (as confirmed / reinforced by a 2nd appt with physio):

Easy, non-stressful climbing every 2-3 days
Gentle massage and stretching.
Very light (<2kg) palm down eccentric bicep curls.

The level of pain isn't decreasing at all. Sore in the morning, sore on various motions (apart from antagonist work), sore-ish climbing, sore afterwards. I get a mild burning pain quite often, I'm going to email the physio about that - it might be part of the healing process.

The level of climbing I'm capable of IS decreasing. I overdid it before Xmas so now I'm being more careful, and backing off any moves that feel at all risky. I'm down to Font 6A / F6b on vertical / gently impending, Font 6B / F6c on slabs, if they're the right style and I'm careful. Nothing steeper ofc.

I've been told clearly to keep the climbing going REGULARLY at an easy level. This is proving quite a struggle. I hate easy stuff indoors and am bored out of my fucking tits. Unfortunately climbing for me is fundamentally a genuine pleasure-driven passion, and that applies to training too (even something as boring as hanging can have some pleasure through pushing myself, but I absolutely cannot push myself in any way at the moment). Doing very easy climbing purely as rehabilitation is....completely alien to me (as a contrast, last year with a spannered leg I could still push hard on upper body work). I "get" eccentrics and stretching and arm cycling and whatever. I just don't "get" 2 hours on vertical ladders.

I am TRYING to make it tolerable, travelling over to Eden to get the most slab options, lapping stuff and trying to focus on footwork and poise. I'd get outside more but, well, Scotland. I'd focus more on general fitness and CV but, well, legs.

  etc. Any ideas to work around this would be appreciated.

[tomtom]

Core? I find it mind numbing but it’s somethjng?

[spidermonkey09]

Core, as TT suggested, and some low level fingerboarding? Might be a bad idea as I haven't read the whole thread. Stretching, general flexibility, pull ups, pushups etc?

[Fiend]

I could do core aye. Thinking of joining a yoga class. It's that desperate.

I should do stretching too. Again I'd rather go for a run (a truly horrible experience for me) than do stretching. I dunno why. Maybe I should investigate more fun stretches.

Very strictly banned from even thinking about pullups - that's partly what got me into this mess in the first place, actually trying to train hard and get stronger instead of being fat and weak and coasting along on my ability to place RPs and pretend choss isn't going to fall down all around me.

[sheavi]

Okay. I'm struggling a bit with this.

I'm pretty much sticking to the plan, (as confirmed / reinforced by a 2nd appt with physio):

Easy, non-stressful climbing every 2-3 days
Gentle massage and stretching.
Very light (<2kg) palm down eccentric bicep curls.

The level of pain isn't decreasing at all. Sore in the morning, sore on various motions (apart from antagonist work), sore-ish climbing, sore afterwards. I get a mild burning pain quite often, I'm going to email the physio about that - it might be part of the healing process.
The level of climbing I'm capable of IS decreasing. I overdid it before Xmas so now I'm being more careful, and backing off any moves that feel at all risky. I'm down to Font 6A / F6b on vertical / gently impending, Font 6B / F6c on slabs, if they're the right style and I'm careful. Nothing steeper ofc.

I've been told clearly to keep the climbing going REGULARLY at an easy level. This is proving quite a struggle. I hate easy stuff indoors and am bored out of my fucking tits. Unfortunately climbing for me is fundamentally a genuine pleasure-driven passion, and that applies to training too (even something as boring as hanging can have some pleasure through pushing myself, but I absolutely cannot push myself in any way at the moment). Doing very easy climbing purely as rehabilitation is....completely alien to me (as a contrast, last year with a spannered leg I could still push hard on upper body work). I "get" eccentrics and stretching and arm cycling and whatever. I just don't "get" 2 hours on vertical ladders.

I am TRYING to make it tolerable, travelling over to Eden to get the most slab options, lapping stuff and trying to focus on footwork and poise. I'd get outside more but, well, Scotland. I'd focus more on general fitness and CV but, well, legs.

  etc. Any ideas to work around this would be appreciated.

I don't mean to be an arse but acceptance of the fact that you're injured and that recovery from this takes time. Months & months if not longer.  Once you accept that it will be easier to cope with mentally. Find something else to beast yourself in the mean-time. Ashtanga yoga can be a great workout, amongst other things, and will help even out any muscular imbalances. It should help your climbing.