I have some bizarre tricep pain on my left arm. It’s a sharp pain at the distal end when I bench heavy, say RPE@8. Very often, the pain is strong enough that I have to give up on the set.
What’s bizarre is, if I rest for the usual 3-5 mins and get back to my sets, the pain will be completely gone and I can carry on with rest of my training without any more problems.
I’ve been having this on and off for many months. In the past, I thought it was an issue of not enough warmup . However, I’m now doing Bridge v1 which has an ascending scheme: RPE 6, 7, 8. Hard to see that’s not enough warmup. By the way, my 1RM isn’t that heavy: 180lbs.
What will that be? And what do I do about it?
Hard to say exactly what’s going on, but if the issue resolves within 3-5 minutes after an exacerbating set that should be reassuring. Sounds like you’re mainly experiencing pain with your top sets? Maybe try adding in more warmups along the way with smaller jumps to get acclimated to the heavier loads. So if you normally do 150lbs @6, 160lbs@7, 170lbs @8, maybe try 145lbs, 150lbs, 155lbs, 160lbs, 165lbs, 170lbs for example. Hope that helps
I got further observations about my symptom. On some accessory lifts, I could feel the tendon of the distal end my tricep moved laterally, rubbed against the bone and then snapped back in place which caused the pain. I did some googling and found “snapping triceps syndrome” which seems to describe my situation.
Is there anything I can do about it?