Heres what was said the last time this was discussed here at Meso...the first post is from AM, 2nd one is mine.
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Ok, here is a list of facts I've gathered concerning the forearm pain many of us have been experiencing...(If you have more to add, concerning your own experience, please feel free to make a comment.)
Also, if you have any scientific backup to what the cause of this problem might be, as well as how to fix it, that would be great.
Facts concerning the pain itself:
Causes:
1) Heavy Curls specifically bad with heavy ez bar or straight bar preacher curls.
2) Heavy Heavy Bench Pressing (In excess of 350 lbs or more on smaller framed individuals additionally bad with the use of bands or heavy top end movements like rack lockouts.
3) Hurts specifically when letting go of the bar.
4) Feels like forearm splints (just like shin splint pain) i.e. the pain "feels" like its in the bones and not the muscles.
5) I believe it tends to effect individuals specifically with smaller wrists.
6) Heavy shrugs tend to aggravate the problem, but is not the cause.
7) It is an extremely sharp pain where your forearms feel like they are going to break in half.
8) Causes:? - Tendonitis, forearm splints, muscle imbalance, connective tissue tearing away form the bone, stress fracture?
9) It seems that specifically curls that twist the wrist make it hurt. i.e. hammer curls are fine because your palms stay facing each other. Also, people who have the trouble from curling seem to have the pain on their outer bone, while people who get it from benching have it more on the inner bone (although pain is usually evident on both bones)
10) When benching it's less painful to use a grip with pinky on rings or slightly narrower, as opposed to a competition width (super wide)
11) Using dumbbells lessens the pain with curls
How to deal with the pain (although none of these are cures I don't think) - but many of them do actually help as I have tried out almost all of these.
1) Work the forearms (helps with if there is a muscle imbalance) - lots of reverse curls, wrist curls, etc) - (This seems to help alot)
2) Bench with a fat bar
3) Take anti-inflammitories before working out and after.
4) Ice after workouts
5) Deep tissue massage, ice Dixie cup massages, and ART techniques to dig out scar tissue. (This is the single best thing I've found to help the pain)
6) Hammer curls to force blood into bicep tendon area
7) DMSO
8) Capzaisin (or Blue Heat/ other liniment before working out
9) Wrapping the forarms tightly with knee wraps
10) Cortisone patch
11) Acupuncture
12) Ultrasound
13) Rest! (Actually this is probably the best remedy - but so far I have only sat out for 2 weeks and then come back, and I probably need about 2 months off.)
AnimalMass
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OK,
Here is my take - basically what Animal Mass said but with one small addition.
I dont think the imbalances would be limited to the WRIST extensors. I think the problem may stem from FINGER extensor weakness. My thinking is like this - yes the amount of wrist flexion BBers go through does exceed the amount of extension by quite a lot so adding some wrist extension stuff makes perfect sense but the one thing we all do more than ANY OTHER MOVEMENT is close our fingers and grip the bar. Every freaking lift you do for every body part you close the hand and hold it there. Therefore you are working the muscles which close the hand 4 - 20 or so times a week depending on your training frequency. Also these muscles are often worked at force levels above the concentric strength of the muscles - for example you might be capable of cleaning 180Kg which would impart massive forces on the fingers, but you couldnt even put 180Kg in your fingertips and then close the hand. This tells us that the fingers are extremely strong in eccentric motions / static strength compared to concentric movements, if they were not then you would lose your grip on every heavy dead or clean / pull. These are some very strong muscles (i know the contribution other factors make to strength folks - but were talking muscle imbalances here).
So, if we are talking about imbalances - how strong are the muscles that OPEN your hand? Put a few elastic bands over your closed fist and attempt to extend all your fingers to make an open hand. Hard isnt it ? Now compare that level of strength to that required for the 180Kg clean - do you sense an imbalance in the antagonists of the hand closing muscles?
How many of you work the muscles that OPEN the hand at all ? I didnt for many years but once i began to pay attention to this little thing my hands / wrists began to feel better and a recurring elbow problem (my right elbow / wrist doesnt like the snatch at all) is always less of a problem when i do my rubber band work. Other possibilities include opening the hand in a bucket of rice or sand. I try to do some extensor work every day simply because I do some gripping every day whenever i train.
Let me know if any one else with wrist pain gives this a try.
Gavin.
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