UKC

Had some trouble with the right elbow which I have been able to clear up by doing Tyler twists with a green theraband flexbar.
Elbow still feeling a bit weak. Should I progress to the blue heaviest flexbar or would that be overdoing it? Instructional videos (for climbers) mostly seem to suggest the green one. Any other advice for strengthening the elbow?

In reply to douwe:

It might help to add a little more detail, do you have tennis elbow? Golfers elbow? A nasty rash?

When you say elbows still feeling 'weak' do you mean painful or just not as strong as you would like?

My personal experience is to only use the flexbar as a rehab device and not as a strengthening tool, although if you used it concentrically on healthy muscles I suppose it would work to strengthen things.

In reply to Dandan:
Case of tennis elbow, hence the tyler twist.
Feel soms tenderness in the elbow at certain movements, pull ups for example. Had trouble doing biceps curls, palm facing inwards to the leg at 10kg, now up to 12,5kg 12 reps is okay. Basically same as left elbow.
Sorry if it all sounds a bit vague, but I find it hard to pinpoint the trouble. Also there is no real pain, just some discomfort.
Been to fysio for bicep/elbow discomfort about 2 years ago. Did some overall strengthening exercises which I still am able to do without much trouble.

In reply to douwe:

I used the green Flexbar for elbow rehab a couple of years ago. That, combined with the eccentric lowering of cantilevered weights seemed to fix things. Good luck!

In reply to Fraser:
Thanks. I'll continue with the flexbar for now.
It's not that the elbow is bothering so much that it is preventing me from climbing. It's just that I would like to push my limits without worrying about aggravating something.

In reply to douwe:

I've got the green one and it works a charm. What set/reps are you doing? Very high reps to the point of failure seems to be the done thing.

Also check that you haven't got tension at the bottom insertion of your bicep into the elbow, or problems at the wrist. Quite often when my arm is feeling 'weak' (not really accurate but I know exactly what you mean) I do exercises or massage for those areas and my arm overall feels way better.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

Thanks.
I usually do 3 sets of 15 reps, with minimal rest between the sets. About 3 times a day if possible. I will experiment with more reps.

My wrist seems fine. Bottom insertion of the bicep I'm not so sure about. There seems to be some weakness there also. The thing is as soon as I find a weakness (like being unable to do bicep curls properly), I target it with exercises and get good results (bicep curls no longer a problem). But this lingering feeling of 'weakness' doesn't seem to disappear entirely.. very annoying.

In reply to douwe:

Do you have an armaid or lacrosse ball (or tin of baked beans!?) ? I find that prehab exercises aren't enough to keep niggles at bay, you need to do some at times aggressive massage.

In my experience there's a huge link between the bicep and just general 'elbow problems'. Start looking after your upper arm and keep doing what you are doing (try increasing reps? I've seen sets of 60 recommended far more often than sets of 15 - you might have to lower intensity of each rep to get to this point)

In reply to douwe:

How are you assessing weakness in the elbow?

There are a number of different muscles that facilitate bending the arm at that joint, muscles are used in a greater or lesser degree depending on if the palm is forwards or towards you.

In reply to alx:
I sense some tenderness / tightness on the outer side (tennis elbow side) while doing biceps curl, most noticably when the palm of the hand is facing inwards towards the leg. Seems to be called 'bicep hammer curl' after some googeling.
Sorry bit difficult to properly explain.

In reply to douwe:

Ditch the flexbar, buy yourself a barbell which you can swap out the weights.

Load one side of the barbel with as much weight as you can control and with your arm bent at 90 degrees, rotate the weight inwards so you end up palm down.

It will hurt. You will feel a full warm feeling in the elbow.

Do this as many times as you can each day, you will find the pain at that joint angle goes after a few days. Even with exercise.
Find a different angle either closer or wider and repeat.

It takes a while to get all the angels but it worked for Dave McLeod, worked for me and a number of fellow climbers. FlexBar seemed to do nothing.

In reply to douwe:

I found the green one didn't do much, but the blue worked a treat.

In reply to alx:

In reply to alx:

Without wanting to be rude, make sure you know what you are talking about before giving out advice. Flexbar is generally for tennis elbow, and the exercise you describe is for golfers.

The OP did specify tennis elbow. Adding in other exercises can't hurt but stopping doing what has so far mostly worked okay seems like a step backwards

In reply to alx:

Thanks.
I know the exercise, I've used it in the past (with a broomhandle and weights).
Recently I've had to increase the weight to get any effect. Because of the increased weight it really started to overload my thumb while lowering the weight.
I'm actually using a combination of flexbar and eccentric lowering of weights now, seems to do the trick.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

Thanks.
But I think you can do both exercises (flexbar and eccentric lowering) for both tennis and golfers elbow. Just rotate in the opposite direction, if you get what I mean. So eccentric lowering would be palm down for tennis and palm up for golfers.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

You can do external rotation for golfers, or internal rotation for tennis elbow and yes contrary to your opinion I do know what I am doing and offering advice on.

To the OP, if the thumb is an issue, wrap this around the barbell with the fingers and drop the weight a bit, I found this added a bit more extension to the exercise.