Brief Medical History Overview
Age: 22, Male, Presenting Problem Since: 4 weeks, Symptom Behaviour: Worse after workouts, Symptoms Worse (24hr Behaviour): same throught the day, No Investigations, No Diabetes, No history of High Blood Pressure, No Medications, No Osteoporosis, No Hx of Cancer, No Unexplained Weight Loss, No Bowel/Bladder issues, Other Info: see PS.
Elbow cracking friction on lockout
Greetings again, this time around I'm having some elbow issues:
a first note: Issue presents only on the left elbow
It was about 4 weeks ago, that I returned from my regular gym session, and that particular day involved a lot of pushing movement
(more specificly it includes standing military press and some bench press lockouts for some tricep focus), so naturally the triceps and elbows were stressed .
I don't recall doing anything particularly different than the previous times, but when i woke up the next day, my elbow would make multiple (painless mostly but if I keep doing it for a 10-20 seconds I get some minor heat feel in the elbow) cracking noises when i tried to lock out my left elbow, or when I tried flexing my arm when the elbow was anywhere close to lockout.
(NOT the usual "popping" style of crackings, more like parts in the elbow were rubbing against each other).
In addition, when my elbow would pass a specific spot right before the lockout (both in opening and closing movement) i'd get some medium pain,
which I felt was not connected directly with the crackings.
Anyway I dropped reduced the weight for my pressing movements for a week, which didn't have much effect, so I dropped lifting overall for another week for easter,
which caused the spot-specific pain to go away, but I was still left with the crackings. I also went back to heavy pushing a week ago, which didn't change anything for better or worse.
The crackings seem to aggravate the hours after pushing workouts, and fade a bit after 1-2 days (but they're still there at all times).
Now today was my 2nd heavy session after the incident. When I reached my heavy sets of military press, I was able to do the set without problems,
but the very second I put the bar back on the rack and relaxed my tricep, I got some pain right where the tricep attaches to the outside part of the elbow.
That release-pain went away after a few sets but I'm not sure that means it was nothing or that I just didn't feel it because the tricep was pumped up.
Lastly I should probably mention my bad habbit of locking out the elbows on pressing movements, which however I've stopped doing these past 2 weeks.
A final note:
the only thing different on my left elbow compared to right one is that I broke my left wrist about 8 years ago when i fell off my skate with my hand fully extended (so my left elbow probably recieved a decent amount of force while in lockout),
but I didn't have any issues so far these years with my elbow.
A quick sum-up of the current condition of the left elbow:
cracking when locking out elbow or flexing arm close to lockout, mild momentary pain on the outside of the elbow when releasing tension on the tricep when pushing heavy weights. Gets worse after pushing workouts.
I'm not sure if the description is helpful, but I think that's probably all I could describe in written speech about the issue. I'm also not sure if it's something to worry about and do something immediately, or something I have to observe over a few more weeks, which is why I'm making this thread to ask for your thoughts on it.
Regards,
Steffan
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