Golf Elbow from Too Much Pull Ups

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
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I just finished reading Barbell Medicine Guide to Tendinopathy. But there are still a few questions I would like Dr. Baraki or Freigenbaum or others to answer.

Scenario: beyond performing the conventional lifts, I’m also a pull-up enthusaists to the point of overkill (I do not mean it lightly! see below).

I do pull-up six days a week as follows:

day 1: 6 sets of 10 reps

day 2: 3 sets of 65 lbs weighted pull ups for 8 reps + 2 sets of 45lbs weighted up for 12 reps

day 3: 6 sets of 10 reps

day 4: 5 sets of 14 reps

day 5: 6 sets of 10 reps

day 6: 5 sets of 25 lbs weighted pu up for 12 reps

The golf elbow symptoms is something that gradually crept in and only lately have I started to taken notice of it because it bothered me a little. But in retrospect I think the symptoms were present for a month and half already. It normally goes like this: the pain would spike in the beginning of the workout (If it’s a pressing day) on the scale of (5-7) at the beginning of the workout for the first two warm-up sets, and then it subsided down to (2-4) and stayed there for the rest of workout. The pain would almost or just completely disappar (0-1) after the workout, unless I consciously apply my hand to it and press the injured area, which will result in a slight pain (1-2).
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As of now the pain is certainly within the range of tolerability, so my questio is: do I need to reduce my workload and cut down volumes, intensity or sets? Or should I simply accep the golf elbow pain as a part of the neccessary adaptation process and only dial back when the symptoms worsen?

In the article, Barbell Medicine also mentions it’s best to take a break from plyometric, sprinting, jumping movements if they involve the injured tendon area----these all sound like power movements to me. When I performed pull up, I sometimes would incorporate EXPLOSIVE pull up that propel my upper body upward till the barbell was bellow my upper abs. Should I eliminate this movement (I don’t experience any pain in this movement. In fact, it feels even better than normal pull up)?

Thank you so much!

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I’ll chime in as I have some knowledge around tendinopathies and have experienced this myself from doing too many pull ups, too soon.

If symptoms are currently within a tolerable range and not impacting performance, I’d be inclined to continue and just monitor symptoms. Tendinopathies can take a long time to calm down and resolve (often several months). If you’re several months down the line and things aren’t better than they are now, or if symptoms go outside of a tolerable range in the short-term, I’d be inclined to back off on the volume to see how it responds, and then gradually build back up to the level you want. Out of curiosity, why are you doing 31 sets of pull ups per week lol?

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Another suggestion, have you tried changing grip to see how that impacts your symptoms, I.e, changing to a neutral or supinated grip, or a thumbless grip. As this tendinopathy involves the muscles used to grip, sometimes changing grip can be a nice work-around and is something that helped me continue to train through the issue.