I like to keep my mental point of origin as “more than human” while doing things physical, so I hate to admit that, of all things, I’m having something of an elbow tendonitis flare up.
It’s been the case for maybe two weeks, and is tied wholly to my having loaded up squats too quickly.
For me, the handful of times I’ve had elbow tendonitis, it’s always been when I’ve pushed up my back squat max – the elbow tendon(s) adapting more slowly to squat every day (or heavier weights alone) more slowly than the rest of the body.
In general I hate taking time off from the gym.
I only do so when mentally I’m okay with doing so.
This isn’t that time!
I’ve been in the gym daily, with some double sessions.
Why?
•I want to.
•screw sitting around the house
You learn things observing the gym floor.
I’ve noticed the in shape 50ish crowd tends to just do lots of light pump work.
So I took a page out of their playbook – I’m doing lots of light work, training around the flare up.
I cut pushups down to 100 a day, 200 tops.
I actually get a euphoric stretch from dips when I’m strongly checked in mentally, so I’ll hit an easy 5 rep warmup set at bw, then one set easy, but more meaningful – for more reps, at bw+45.
Just for a laugh I’ve refused to do bw pullups this month, only doing weighted chins a handful of times.
(This decision was before the elbow tendonitis flare up, and low volume, not amrap sets of weighted chin have been fine on it.)
I actually wonder now if dropping the loads of bw chins I was doing in some manner led to the elbow tendonitis flare up.
I could see less work actually have been a problem in this case, the chins may have kept the tendon good, or better than it/they are right now with the flare up from the heavy smith squats.
But I’ve been loving the squats so I’ve just been hitting sets of 10 at 1p each session.
So light, but enough to get a pump, my glutes and quads having been feeling nicely solid.
Hell my back feels “one piece”, the muscular system well worked, but not in a way so as to create soreness.
This feeling also comes with the volume wrestler’s bridging that I’ve been doing.
The wrestler’s bridge is your best friend if an elbow bugs you!
All day baby! Bridging all day!
This full body light feel the muscle work has the muscles left in a way that I’m amped up to go back, and have been – it’s been double sessions for days.
Look around the gym, plenty of women have nice firm builds using very light weights, often on machines ; you, as a man, effectively are on testosterone overdose in comparison, and therefore can do the same thing.
So I’ve been training light with high frequency – fuck giving up to an inflamed elbow tendon!
Persistence & Tenacity