Elbow pain

[MarkW]

Hi Everyone

I have been erging very regularly for over five years. Over the last month or so I have been experiencing some pain in my elbows (mostly the right one). I thought at first it was from curling dumbells, so I throttled way back on that and it hasn't gone away.

I really hope its not from my C2. I do not want to give it up.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

Thanx

MarkW

[chgoss]

Where is the pain? If it hurts a lot when you bang it against something (like banging into the wall by accident) that's "tennis elbow", dont know the official name.

Some things that might help:
- make sure that you keep your arms straight at the catch, and through the drive. takes the strain off the elbow.
- experiement with pulling the handle in to your body at different heights, and with your elbows high vs right next to your body.. Find the one that puts the least amount of strain on the elbow.
- stick with the higer SPM's, 27-30 range.. The lower SPM's (20-24) exert more force on everything..
- keep the DF low, under 110 or so.

You are probably not going to find a lot of agreement from others on the forum, but I believe weights help tendon and joint problems if it is done carefully (high reps, low weights, build up slowly).

I have had elbow pain before.. lowering the DF and raising the stroke rate helped me out..

hope it helps
-chad

[johnlvs2run]

I had pain in my right elbow, from it banging on the floor when an ab wheel slipped a few years ago. It didn't bother me usually, until I was doing some straight leg rowing and then it flared up.

The solution was to soak my elbow in a bowl of ice water, a couple times each day, for a few minutes at a time. Doing this before, in between, and after rowing helped my elbow to heal. The pain went away and it hasn't bothered me since.

It sounds to me that the curls were the cause, which are a relatively useless exercise anyway. I never do them and have quite well toned biceps from doing occasional pull ups on a roller board, and standing press with light weights. In lieu of those, standing or bent over rows would be good.

[Citroen]

I get terrible golfer's elbow from the rower (worse with a model D handle).

The pain in my right elbow has got much better in the last three weeks since I've stopped rowing due to a broken left radius currently in a plaster cast.

I have done some one-handed rowing.

[George Dunning]

Row with your thumbs on top or anywhere but underneath - for me it was a case of gripping to hard (no jokes please)

[MarkW]

Thanks guys for the thoughtful responses. I will give these suggestions a try and post my results in a few weeks.

MarkW