Tendon pain of the long head of the triceps

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
1

Hello doctors!

For about 1-2 years I’ve been dealing with major pain in the tendons of the long head of the triceps on both arms. The pain started long before I found out about BBM, after heavy french presses, and all kind of heavy isolation work for the long heads. I was able to fix both by:

-using knowledge from Barbell Medicine (long time fan);
-by doing light tempo work of 1 arm DB behind the head extensions;
-and by mixing two salves and applying them to my elbows with warm compresses for ~9 hours (a doctor I know recommended).

Inflammation was gone within a week thanks to the salves, but it still took about 2 months of rehab tempo work for the pain to go away during the exercises.

My left elbow is completely healed. My right though, is still having some issues. It is no longer inflamed, however I still experience discomfort and some pain during any kind of long head isolation work (elbow doesn’t bother me on anything else).

I can’t pinpoint where exactly it hurts during the load - it just feels unstable and like a general elbow pain. The heavier the load the bigger the pain. But in a completely relaxed state if I dig my finger right into the base of the tendon, where it attaches to olecranon bone - I can feel the pain right at the very insertion point the tendon, and about 1-2 of millimeters around it.

I could describe pain as sharp-ish…

I don’t get the same sensation on my left elbow when I dig the finger into the same spot.

Now that the whole country I’m in is quarantined, I decided to apply compresses every day with those salves, and will continue doing different types of tempo work when the gym opens back up (I got lazy with those for last 6 months or so).

I was hoping maybe you could help me out and recommend any meds/salves, some rehab work, maybe recommend a brand of CBD oil (just kidding lol).

Thank you.

P.S. I also sit in a chair with kind of hard armrests, and usually lean on my right arm. No pain when sitting, but I believe I put some of my weight when sitting right on that spot on the elbow. Could it be my chair?

2

@Wazgrel - thanks for the question and glad to hear our content has been helpful previously. It’s unlikely we would recommend the salve or compression but load management is typically the name of the game in these scenarios. Check out this article for further guidance: Pain in Training: What To Do?

Chair - it’s possible you are regularly leaning on the surface and aggravating the area further. Perhaps try to change position or utilize some sort of padding on the armrest to help.

1 Like
3

Thank you so much Michael! I’ll give it a shot once the quarantine is over.

Strangely enough though, the elbow got much better. Whether it’s from salves+hot water or the fact that I can’t train because of the quarantine is up to debate. One salve has an anticoagulant chemical in it, another has an NSAID that is used on horses and not allowed for human use in most countries since 2003… lol But where I’m from it’s sold freely. I imagine it should have some effect?

But I’ll take your word for it, I won’t bother buying more once I run out.

We’ll see how the elbow does once I get back to action. Cheers! :slight_smile: