Elbow Pain can ruin your workout. When elbow pain gets in the way of your training like this, it can be hard to see the results that you want from your workout. To avoid elbow pain in my training, there are several handles that I use INSTEAD of doing them on the actual Pull-up Bar. This video shows you the handles I use to reduce elbow pain and make my Pull-ups virtually pain free.

Here are links to buy the devices shown in the video for pain free Pull-up training, as well

The Back Bull: I love this thing. It goes onto the bar easy and allows for both a near-overhand or near-underhand position, depending on which muscles you want to emphasize.

Perfect Pull-ups: Unfortunately, I can no longer find Perfect Pull-ups for sale. However, there is a tool out there called Stamina Rotating Handles that look very similar. What’s nice about these is that they allow for a bit wider grip.

Grapple Grips: To my surprise, I can not find these handles anymore either. That’s a shame because these handles could be used for Dumbbell Rows and Cable Rows, as well. A similar device you might want to try is the Grandfather Clocks from Rogue Fitness

Metolius Rock Rings: These tools are made for training the hands for the demands of climbing, but with the way they swivel while hanging from a bar, the make Pull-ups much more comfortable for the elbows.

All of these handles are very effective at reducing the pain you feel when doing Pull-ups and Chin-ups. If your back training seems to be suffering due to elbow pain, then give one of these a try and see if they can be effective at reducing elbow pain from Pull-ups as much as they have been for me.

Any questions on these tools, feel free to ask via the comments section below, email, or message.

All the best in your training.

Jedd

DIESELS!

Elbow Pain is something that causes problems for any lifter.

It doesn’t matter what style of training or sport you practice, if your elbow is riddled with pain, it is going to keep you from lifting the weights you want to, it can keep you from performing your best, and it can be a little distraction that just sits there all the time in the back of your mind, and you will always be thinking about it and wondering when it it is going to bother you again…

I got the following email today in my inbox just as I was starting the below post. This is a question I get on a routine basis, so I thought I would address it here for all of you.

“Hello Jedd, my name is Alex. I am definitely a fan of your site. Since you’ve been injured before, maybe you could help me out.

I sustained an injury while doing 600 lbs calve raises. I was diagnosed with patellofemoral syndrome by the physical therapist, and I had real sore knees for six months.

Because it took so long to heal, I now have a fear of getting injured and I am always sore, even when I work out. I wonder, is that little twinge of pain in my wrist flexors indicative of a larger problem, or is it nothing?

Anyway, this fear of injury is causing me a lot of problems with really going to my full potential. Even now, I’m starting to be afraid of training my forearms, which I never thought would happen before. I’m afraid my wrist tendons will snap clean off the bone.

Anyway, Jedd, maybe you have some advice for me?”

Hell yeah, I have advice for you.

Do everything in your power to prevent these injuries BEFORE THEY HAPPEN, because even if that muscle never tears, and all you get is an injury to the connective tissues, that will be bad enough.

My recommendation right away is to grab our book, Fixing Elbow Pain 2.0 RIGHT NOW while we have it on sale and start implementing the preventive strategies I cover TODAY.

Diesels, I have suffered from High Forearm and Elbow Pain on more occasions than I care to count. The first time I got it, I was doing a lot of Steel Bending while I was also doing Odd Object Lifting like Atlas Stone Training.

Both of these activities are completely safe if you watch the volume and have good technique. Unfortunately for me, I was NOT monitoring volume because I thought I was some kind of tough guy, and I was very new at Atlas Stone Lifting, so I was probably lacking a bit in the technique area too.

What resulted from this lack of attention to volume and technique was some of the worst pain I’ve ever been in – a combined case of Tennis Elbow (lateral epicondylitis) and Golfer’s Elbow (Medial epicondylitis). Both of these conditions are bad enough alone, but I had a serious case of each of them and getting through a workout meant at least a half dozen ibuprofen – I was probably on way to developing an ulcer as well!

Fortunately, these cases are preventible if you follow some really simple prevention methods, which I’d like to cover below.

How to Prevent High Forearm and Elbow Pain

1. Warm-up Properly

The muscles and connective tissues of the high forearm and elbow area need to be warmed up in order to function properly and to keep injuries away. In the video below I show what I do at the end of my full warm-up session in order to make sure my forearms are flushed with blood and the joints lubricated.

2. Stretch Post-Workout

If you are not stretching the forearm and hand muscles out at the end of your workout, then you are initiating a countdown to injury. Stretching helps to reduce the tension in the muscles, relaxing them, and allowing them to more fully recover. Skipping stretching is so 2001! It only takes 3 minutes to stretch out the forearms effectively, so I don’t want to hear any excuses.

3. Stretch Contributing Muscle Areas

Any time I feel tension building in the area near the elbows and epicondyles, I schedule a 30-minute massage. To my surprise, sometimes she isn’t even concerned about the epicondyle area, but rather up the chain to the upper arm. You see, the tricep had gotten do tight, it was pulling on the lower forearm bones and causing issues for the entire elbow. Here is what I do in order to keep this pain from coming back, 3 times a week.

For Alex, I would tell him to stretch his biceps. They could very well be tight and causing the same kinds of problems to his elbow, just on the other side. If you notice above, he said it is the flexor muscles that he is worried about. And along the lines of worrying – that’s got to stop right now! When you worry, you focus too much on the problem. Instead of worrying, pick up my program, Fixing Elbow Pain 2.0, follow my preventive strategies in the 2nd ebook, and you won’t have to worry anymore.

On top of the three things I show above, I also have a handful of exercises I do every single week in order to keep the lateral portion of the high forearm/elbow strong and stimulated. Weakness in the area is also a contributor, so I make sure there is NO CHANCE for weakness in the area.

DIESELS, I haven’t had a serious bout of epiconylitis in over 2 years since employing these regular prevention methods and I have done nothing since then but train harder and harder and harder.

I am confident that if more people followed my lead, fewer people would suffer from annoying pain like this. The information is available for CHEAP, a fraction of the cost of actual physical therapy, that’s for sure, so I am not sure why more people don’t get our ebook.

I talk all about these exercises in Fix My Elbow Pain (Special Price Right Now). Rick Kaselj and I worked together on this. He covered the REHAB portion, and I called the PRE-HAB and PREVENTIVE side.

Believe me, you DON’T want this kind of pain. I will show you exactly how to keep it away. Just click the image below.

All the best in your training,

Jedd

I have received questions about Speed Bag Hitting lately.

I have a handful of videos up on YouTube that can help with this.

Basic Speedbag Hitting Techniques

Working into Some Advanced Techniques

Really Advanced Stuff: Quadruple Elbow Strikes

Some Really Crazy Stuff: Covering Eyes While Hitting

But It All Started With This, Diesels

Everybody’s gotta start somewhere. When I first started, I couldn’t do any of the advanced stuff. I couldn’t even do the basic stuff!

The video directly above is me after just a couple of months of having my own platform. It was lame cheap-o model that shook and vibrated, and I needed the big bag in order to maintain control on the bag.

Hitting the speedbag is a great type of training to add to your routine. While challenging, it can also be very relaxing as well as useful for warm-up for the shoulders and elbows, something very important for those of you who train your grip hard and are susceptible to things like tennis elbow and other elbow pain.

In fact, I made speed bag hitting part of my warm-up for about a year straight because it helped me get blood into my upper forearm and elbow area, and kept things like forearm and elbow pain away.

I am planning on putting up a new platform for hitting the speedbag. I used to do it just about every day, but I had to take my old platform down when I added a bathroom downstairs, and have begun to really miss it.

Hopefully, I can get something installed soon, and you can look forward to more speed bag videos.

All the best in your training.

Jedd