Golfer's elbow pain from pressing

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello,

I’ve occasionally experienced inner elbow pain in my right elbow from performing incline bench (I don’t do flat bench). The pain, if occurred at all, only and always occurred at a certain range of motion (and at exactly the same point everyt time) in the descent part of the overall movement. When the pain happened, I felt inside my right inner elbow there was always a click or grinding inside. The pain normally went away after a day of rest and never affect my overhead press. What alarms me now is that the pain occurs even in my overhead pressing movement today, whereas the occurrence of the pain was restricted to my incline bench only before.

Likewise, I experience pain, when performing the overhead pressing movement, only during the descent part of the movement (or the ascent part of the movement starts to hurt only after a few reps with pain during the descent part of the movement; in other words, pain during the descent part of the movement always happened first and so caused the pain during the ascent part of the movement). What really puzzles me now is whether this issue has more to do with an actual injury or simply a matter of form issue. The interesting thing is I barely experience pain at the start of today’s workout when I was performing overhead press explosively (quick up and quick down). Paradoxically, it was only after I started reminding myself about my elbow and I deliberately slowed down my movement when I started experiencing pain. I figure, since I have no pain pressing the barbell upward, the reason I am having pain now must concern my technique when handling the weight on its way down. What do you think?

I must also mention I overhead press and squat on different day. And I never experience elbow pain from squat. I recently also increased my volume of pull ups (I do pull ups three times a week on the same day I press or incline bench), but I likewise never experience elbow pain from pull ups. This is also the first time I experience elbow pain from doing overhead press.

Here is the video I shot today:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BtqBConhu_Q/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BtqA0YeBNr4/

Thank you!

2

There’s nothing egregiously wrong with the two videos of the empty bar you submitted, though I’d cue you to stop taking so much time prior to getting under the bar because you’re thinking about it, focusing on it, worrying about it (self admission).

I think the overall programming probably needs to be changed to manage your fatigue in a way that is compatible with your current resources for training and recovery, but I have no idea what program you’re running.