Tendinitis in elbow preventing me from working out, do I just have to give up and wait?

ReusableGore

I have had tendinitis in my right elbow for months now. It prevents me from doing any form of exercise that focuses on the biceps, and I can tell I'm losing muscle. Do I have no choice but to stop exercising and wait for it to heal?

I have tried doing different types of exercises, and very light weight, but nothing allows me to exercise without pain. One curl with a 5lb dumbbell hurts.

darkmayo

Elevate, Compress, Ice, Rest.

What happened to bring about the injury in the first place and have you had it looked at.

ReusableGore

I injured it using too much weight doing these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgCRn2Rdoxc

I have not purposefully pointed my elbow out to anyone, but people see it everyday.

Usagi

Going to the doctor and then a physical therapist is probably a good idea

ReusableGore

Usagi wrote:

Going to the doctor and then a physical therapist is probably a good idea

Probably. But I'm not going to.

Tube

Do exercises that don't aggravate it. There are dozens. Squat heavy. Clean. Press. Deadlift. It's doubtful that if you hurt it by going heavy that it's tendonitis, that's an overuse injury. Either way if you're not willing to go to the doctor there's nothing anyone here can tell you so pick your poison. Doctor or ibuprofen.

darkmayo

ReusableGore wrote:

Usagi wrote:

Going to the doctor and then a physical therapist is probably a good idea

Probably. But I'm not going to.

Seriously go get it checked out better to know for sure it is tendinitis and not lets say a torn tendon or something worse.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

If it is tendonitis, there's nothing much you can do but rest it. But like tube says, tendonitis is caused by repetitive use, not overexertion, so it's unlikely that you got tendonitis by powerlifting.

If you aren't going to get it checked out, you should really just rest it until there's no more pain. All you're going to do by continuing to lift on it is aggravate whatever injury you do have.

Fairchild

darkmayo wrote:

ReusableGore wrote:

Usagi wrote:

Going to the doctor and then a physical therapist is probably a good idea

Probably. But I'm not going to.

Seriously go get it checked out better to know for sure it is tendinitis and not lets say a torn tendon or something worse.

I agree, if it hasn't gone away by now you should get it checked out.

acadia

Eat it You Nasty Pig. wrote:

If it is tendonitis, there's nothing much you can do but rest it. But like tube says, tendonitis is caused by repetitive use, not overexertion, so it's unlikely that you got tendonitis by powerlifting.

If you aren't going to get it checked out, you should really just rest it until there's no more pain. All you're going to do by continuing to lift on it is aggravate whatever injury you do have.

That. Stop lifting, you're just making it hurt that much longer. Go to a doctor. Sheesh.

Taranis

ReusableGore wrote:

I have had tendinitis in my right elbow for months now. It prevents me from doing any form of exercise that focuses on the biceps, and I can tell I'm losing muscle. Do I have no choice but to stop exercising and wait for it to heal?

I have tried doing different types of exercises, and very light weight, but nothing allows me to exercise without pain. One curl with a 5lb dumbbell hurts.

What is your workout schedule?

Magic Pink

I had the exact same thing. Tendonitis, both elbows, both sides, super painful, using too much weight, couldn't lift anymore. I also couldn't do any sort of back or shoulder lifting because of it.

And I'll tell you right now going to a doctor for it is a HUGE waste of time. The ONLY thing that will fix it is 100% rest and the only reason I rested it as long as I needed to was because I broke my arm. Icing, heating and all kinds of medication did diddly squat. The sooner you rest it, the sooner you can be back to stuff you were doing before. The longer you wait, the more injured it'll get and the worse it will heal. So give a good two months and then start again from the beginning.

Magic Pink

Also, one exercise I was able to do that didn't hurt is:

Using light weights, extend your arms out to the sides, horizontally. Do bi cep curls from there; keeping your shoulder to elbow COMPLETELY horizontal and stable as possible, you can try standing on one leg too. I used the pully rig and it never hurt to do it. You could also try very wide grip pull ups. You may want to try some forearm and wrist strengthening exercises; that's what my physical therapist had me do. (However, it didn't work at all and they eventually just didn't bother to re-schedule me for any visits because they couldn't find out what was wrong and nothing was working. But yours could be different.)