I’m running LP and recently I started getting really bad elbow pain on my Bench Press. After some searching around I discovered it may be due to my grip on the low bar squat being too wide. I’m working on fixing that however i’m finding it very difficult to bring my hands in closer. Right now it’s probably around the same grip i take on my bench maybe a little narrower. I was wondering what more can I do to improve this, because I feel like everything will start to break down if I can’t progress my Bench due to elbow pain. Should I potentially switch to high bar after not being able to do it for a period of time?
For a little background and context I’ve been training for a few years now but have been jumping program to program and got fed up with my own lack of progress and started SS this past year around May. I attended a SS seminar a couple of months back and was able to get the bar in position with the help of my coaches but I can’t seem to get it there on my own (the bar basically felt glued to my back when I was at the seminar).
I’m a 30 yr old male, 5’10, 240 lbs and my 3x5 lifts as of now are
Squat- 245
Dead- 295 (sloppy)
Press- 105
Bench-155 (did 160 my last workout but I ended the sets early because my elbow pain was so bad.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated! I’ve found the site and these message boards a very valuable resource. Love your podcasts and Youtube channel as well. Nothing but quality content!
Yes, this is often related to the grip / setup on the squat, and is less often a primary bench press error. I’d recommend searching the forums for our previous discussions on elbow pain, and I’ll bump this down to the unmoderated forum so others can chime in with their experience as well.
I’m about your size. Any elbow pain I’ve had has been from squat grip, and I’ve found that if I can angle my wrists so that they stay in line with my forearms (along with keeping a neutral wrist, etc), it keeps the pain away. I put my ring fingers on the bar rings, get under the bar, and before I unrack I see if I can get a little bit narrower. Sometimes I can get my pinkies on the rings, sometimes I can’t. Either way, not too much pressure put on my palms in terms of them actually holding the bar up.
I had success by wearing wrist wraps when squatting. Something about forcing the wrist into line fixed my serious elbow pain. I would have thought that would make me more likely to carry weight on my arms, but it didn’t.
So I decided to tweak my workout today and used wrist wraps as well as put my Bench first in my workout and it seemed to help things out a lot. I benched 160 for 3x5 with no problem. I had a little irriatation in my left elbow after work sets 2 and 3 but nothing major and I feel like it might just be carried over from the last time.
Still having issues getting my hands in more on the squat but I’m gonna work on it a little more before giving up and switching to high bar. Anything closer in than my bench grip and my hands want to slide out as soon as I get the bar in the right spot on my back. I don’t feel like i’m taking any of the weight in my hands so the best i can figure is that my grip needs to come in more. I find it a little easier to take a wider grip while still keeping my back tight but I don’t know how good of a solution that is or if it will help or make my elbow irritation worse.
Shout out to GoWolfPack again for the wrist wrap suggestion!
I suffered with this in the past, sometimes the pain was so bad I couldn’t finish the workout. I can safely say I feel your pain
The good news is I’ve been pain free for a few months, with only minor discomfort when maintaining the LB position for high reps/tempo squats.
The how
Record your squats and focus on bar position.
Do you start with the bar in the correct position?
Do you maintain this position for the entire set?
Do you maintain thoracic extension?
Fix form errors, record yourself (repeat)
Narrow grip to help maintain thoracic extension.
Try thumbs around grip
Think about bending the bar around you
Fix head position
Refer to
uncle Rip videos, spine of the scapula…
Alan Thrall, squat videos
Leah Lutz, thoracic extension
Ben Pollack, specifically the hand grip variations
What didn’t work
Mobility work for shoulders, tight lats, tight pecs
This is a slow process (at least, it is when you are 44). I also need to stretch my shoulders into the low bar position - I simply cannot get into it straight up. I end up squatting my first warm up set high bar, while spending the gap between sets by putting my hands into the correct position on the bar for the LB, then squeezing under the bar and stretching it down the back. This is working well as I can now get into LB by the second empty bar set (used to take a lot more work).
I like to start in the low bar position by spreading my hands wide apart. My first warmup I usually have my hands outside the power rings. Every subsequent warmup set I move in a finger width but never have to change from high to low bar position. By my fourth or fifth set my pinkie fingers are on the power rings but they tend to slide out as a set goes on.
I believe I had something of a break through last night. Have been dealing with pain at the medial epicondyle of my right elbow (golfer’s elbow I believe) in the LB squat. Goes away after lifting, gets angry again when squatting.
Have been playing with Austin’s que to “pin the elbows to my side” and carry the weight on my shoulders. I have been trying to pull my elbows in by squeezing my shoulder blades together. I noticed this was causing me to apply a little force to the bar through internal rotation of the humerus. While playing with this last night, I tried pulling my humerus to my side by squeezing my lat just behind the armpit. This caused a change from slightly rotating the humerus internally to externally. Not saying there was visible rotation, just the way muscles were engaging and causing stress to the elbow.
This change seemed to do the trick. Can’t wait to see if it works long term, but it’s the first time I’ve found something that works.
Can’t say how thrilled I was when I finally found something that seemed to work! Hope this helps someone!
