Hey folks,
Day 0: About a month ago I hit the tip of my elbow on a metal baluster while coming to the stairs. It hurt a lot, and about 5-10 minutes later I noticed my elbow had blown up. I iced it and wrapped it, and took so advil.
Day 1: The swelling reduced a lot by the next morning, but didn’t completely go away. I did a little bit of training later that day, felt ok, but full range extension of the elbow was stiff so I didn’t push through it.
Day 2: Squatted with a bar on my back, no issues there.
Day 3: Did my normal Comp bench routine, with basically no restrictions at all.
At this point, I did nothing more for the elbow.
Day 11: I mildly struck my elbow against a padded armrest. Felt a little painful, but didn’t think anything of it. About 5-10 minutes later it blew up again. WTF? So I iced and wrapped it again, took Advil. The swelling went down quickly, maybe even quicker than the first time. Trained normally by the next day, and without modification until the next event.
Day 24: I hit my elbow quite hard against a plate storage post. It hurt, I immediately wrapped and iced it, I don’t know if it fully blew up again. By the time I took the first ice wrap off it looked a little swollen but not crazy.
Day 28: A couple of days ago, I finally decided to look into this injury (olecranon bursitis), and the general wisdom seems to be to stop all training on this injured arm for at least 3 weeks. And also to keep it wrapped, or use a compression sleeve at all times. I believe this means I literally can’t do anything with this arm, no presses, curls, laterals, skull crushers, rows, the obvious stuff. But it seems I shouldn’t even squat with a barbell on my back or deadlift with a barbell. Does this sound accurate? Any nuances here?
I’m not too worried about finding other ways to train, I just don’t want to overly restrict myself. I’m also not sure how to know I’m good to go.
Other than the days after I struck the elbow on something, I’ve had almost no pain symptoms from training. However, the tip of the elbow is painful to the touch, and it feels like there’s a little fluid sack around it. Also the elbow feels kind of bumpy now, not as smooth as the uninjured side.
Appreciate any help or advice you can provide.
Thank you!