How To Heal Golfer's Elbow - Starting Strength Radio Clips 

I am a Physio and can confirm everything he says. Tendonitis needs training, not rest. In really bad cases you can start with isometric exercises up to 30 seconds in duration. Then go to eccentric training as soon as possible. This is the only proven way to change the tissue quality back to normal.

4:40 starts the advice

God I love this man. He talks so much sense and has saved me. Want to travel to America just to have one single training session with him. I am praying it will happen. ❤️

Chin-up protocol helped me tremendously.

I've criticized Rip before, so it only fair I counteract it now in saying he's spot on here with the fact tendons won't heal with rest. It only cements the problem with poor tissue matrix. I got golfer's elbow in 1999, doctor said ice and rest. 21 years later I still had it to the point it affected everything I did from how I slept, hold a cup, wash my hair, wipe my ass, get up from a chair, drive a car, etc. Do not ice it, that's a bs idea that doesn't heal anything. Mileage can vary, obviously, but after 20+ years the best thing I've come across is static tensile pressure. Accidentally while doing passive hangs for shoulder rehab, I started noticing the GE was getting better. Legit better, not temporary relief. As my program got deadlifts added in, the GE kept getting better. Calculated stress without elbow flexion is what unlocked the remodeling process of the tendon tissue. Your tendon that's affected also is involved in forearm pronation. When I dumbell curl, I put a 5%-10% more weight on the pinky side of the dumbell to actively engage the supinators. I'll spare you the endless tactics, reading and ideas that went nowhere over two decades. As Rip said, you're going to have to start mildly injuring those scar tissue fibers that have formed and give them a second chance, a correct opportunity to rebuild with healthy fibers that are of correct composition.

This is literally the single best video i have ever watched on fitness on utube. I have done pull ups wide grips for years and developed the pain medial epicondliyist, golfer's elbow. I did everthing to heal this pain, but with mark's protocol it healed in one sesson. thank you coach Mark :)

I had tricep tendinitis. Looked up some info and had a quick recovery doing light behind the head Dumbbell extensions for hight volume, focusing on the eccentric portion. Never got it again.

Story time: I started lifting about four years ago hhh-when I was 41. I immediately got tendinitis in both knees from squatting (probably because I had had a desk job for about 12 years and my body was made out of matchsticks and butter), and after about half a years of trying shit out I noticed that the only leg exercises I could do without my knees hurting to bad was the deadlift and the squat when I bent over much more then I did before so that my knees never went past my toes. After deadlifting a squatting for a couple of months the pain and the tendinitis disappeared. My sister, who is a doctor 👻. said that my joints and tendons had probably gotten stronger to the point where they could now do the job I was asking of them hhh-when I first started training.

Thanks for the video. I´ve had golfers elbow for 3 months in my right arm, so the doctor told med to just stay at home for a while. 3 months later im still home, having the same pain, and starting to get the same problem in my left arm as well. Im absolutely trying this. Ty man!

Dear Rippetoe, I’ve been a follower since my early teens and I’m now in my thirties, and always took your advice as gospel. That being said, after approximately three years of having followed your advice on this issue, I can safely say that it not only didn’t work for me, it actively injured me and set me back miles ahead, perhaps even crippling me to an extent. In retrospect, why the hell would I think to overwork a painful movement on an injured tendon was a good idea? I don’t know. It wasn’t, and I regret the state of my elbow today. That is all sir. You helped me get strong overall, but I sincerely feel I won’t recover from what I’ve done to myself listening to you here. Have a good day.

Love him or hate him, he definitely knows his stuff! 👍

I agree for the most part, however, a short term rest phase is just the initial part of recovery. Once the pain subsides, you do your PT strengthening movements like wrist curls to strengthen the now weakened area. Neglect will eventually lead to a regression of the tendon pain.

My body : that hurts!!! My mind : deal with it!!

I tried the chin up approach here with not much improvement, that said I was still doing other lifts which I'm thinking didn't help. However, I find doing a close grip chin-up helps get a chin in without pain. Also, not wrapping the thumb around the bar. Anyway, might be worth a shot for you if looking to keep up with chins and no other approach is working.

I had tennis and golfers elbow in both elbows at the same time, rest done nothing, I done one workout of chin ups and the pain went away, unbelievable.

Very interesting information. Even if chins caused the tendinitis in the first place?

My rotator cuff was hurting. I stopped benching. It didn’t go away. I started light db bench. It instantly felt better. So weird...

Starting chin up protocol today!

I had this same issue. I just figured that one day my tendon in that area would eventually stop hurting. From August 14, 2019, the day I started SS Houston, I had a tendon in my inner elbow on the left side hurt like hell. I thought it was because I am right handed and had never used that part of the left side of my body before.....the inflammation was so bad that it even hurt to brush my teeth and then cup my hands to rinse my mouth. But the funny thing was that after my first set of squats, it would be manageable and I got through them. My elbow tendonitis comes back only if I am moving up in weight.....every 15 or 20 lbs or so in my squat. It literally took 5 months before my elbow stopped hurting. The same thing went on with my knees, the left side of my lower back, and my right I.T. Band on the side of my leg between Hammy and Quad.....those both still tweak, but I get through it. My knees are no longer inflamed and I figure my back and I.T. band will do the same in time.....One thing I do is make sure I take my Vitamin D3 (doctor's orders and 50,000 iu once a week with 10,000 iu other days) and my Tumeric (double dose each day) which both help with my muscle function and inflammation.

i wish you were my dad, thanks a lot, you are a wise man

I have tennis elbow for about 3 months now. I believed its from doing pull ups chin ups. I completely stoped doing chin ups pull ups for about 2 months, but the elbow doesn't heal. Should I start doind pull ups chin ups again?

Will heavy-ass underhand lat pulldowns work for this if one can't do a pullup or enough? I know some gyms have the assistance pull up machine where you rest your knees or you can use a band, but in absence of that, will the effect be the same/similar?

Wow! I'm literally lost for words. I've developed both tennis and golfers elbow in my right arm and in the morning it's really painful to straighten the arm. I've stopped strength training and was going to book a physio appointment, but on this basis, I'll cancel the physio and resume the training and my chin ups

Sir, please suggest something for triceps tendinopathy as well

Can confirm. Get tennis elbow flare ups from work, just keep on going to work, swinging that sledgehammer crushing fucking stakes. While it's pure agony most times, it eventually subsides and pain goes away.

Hey Rip, How long should someone wait to start the chin-up protocol? For example if I developed golfers week a week ago should I wait a few more days or get started right away?

Exactly mt experience. I wish I'd seen this video years ago 😅

Palms towards or away for tennis elbow?

Have had media epicondylitis for over 20yrs. My best advice is holding static loads, like passive hanging. Also, for 19yrs I addressed is as a flexor or grip flexion problem. Mine is not much of that, mine is predominantly a pronator problem. Hold onto bars and whatever in a manner that you're mildly actively trying to supinate, in an effort to unfire the pronators. That's helps reduce the inflammation, but passive hanging has helped with tissue remodeling of the decades old defective tissue matrix.

Is it okay to use neutral grip chins? Or do they need to be supinated (palms facing myself) chins for this to work?

Pull ups aggravate my medial epicondyle way more! Should I do this routine using pull ups instead? I punched a lot (pronation), my pain also comes usually when I'm doing anything with a pronated grip. And yes an orthopaedic diagnosedd my issue as medial epicondylitis (tendinosis, over a year)

Sadly, I had the same problem… had to work it slowly, and massage and deal with it. Rest did not deal with it.

Would taking advil/ibuprofen cause this not to work because it's an anti-inflammatory?

Supplementing boron helped my elbow tendonitis.

My golfers elbow started when I did a lot of chin ups on rings. And it's getting worst when I do them. I don't think the best solution is more chin ups.

I had a bad case of golfers elbow from doing too much volume on chinups

Leaving a comment here to put my hat in. This protocol did not work for me. Followed for ten weeks. Didn't make it worse, but didn't help.

When you say 5 workouts of the chins protocol what’s the interval between workouts ? Every other day ? Or ?

What's the recommended frequency of the chins? I tried multiple frequencies and still have golfers elbow. I tried 5 days in a row, every other day and twice a week. Still no relief.

I got golfer's elbow via arm wrestling and I have been working the hell out of my tendon via chin ups and barbell curls. The first workout was excruciating, but the 2nd workout just two days later was a lot less painful even though I was doing even more chin ups, so it appears to be working. In 3 days, I will do another 20 sets of chinups and if I don't report back, assume it worked.

Will this also work with a triceps tendonitis?

Should you do pullups instead of Chinups in case of tennis elbow?

What if you have golfers elbow not from squats but from chinups ?

Man... This info came down from heaven for me... I didn't know what to do with my elbow pain after my squats. I'm gonna give it a try.

I tried finding the protocol on the site to fight through golfers elbow. I can t seem to find the videos....anyone have luck with this?

But what about David??

How can you recover from tennis elbow?

Is it okay to continue to ice the elbow during the weeks that you are doing the chinup protocol? Or is that counter productive to the inflammation we're trying to generate? Thank you

Rip says the chinups will make the elbows hurt like hell... I have golfers elbow from squat and bench press (probably actually caused by the squat) and when I do the chins as suggested it doesn't actually make the elbow hurt, so I'm not sure if its working.

Do you do this chin up workout once or twice a week?

when he says do "chins" does he mean "chin ups"? And how many should I do? How much rest?

Bad idea. Tried it. Half fixed the problem. Created a new problem in the right.

I fucked up my elbo doing a chest press ( going way to heavy than I can lift) and I god tennis elbow, I thought it would heal and it didnt, I just started moving my hand in a way I can feel my tendon stretching, and I just did that over and over and it healed.

Rip, would it be the same protocol if you already ruptured that tendon? I ruptured mine in my right elbow while doing chins. I've switched back to high-bar squats because of the pain in my left elbow. I'd like to go back to low bar squats but want to keep my left arm healthy.

Making it hurt like hell... Is that really smart? Should this applied to all forms of tendonitis? I don't see how "hurting like hell" is the best diagnostic criteria that the protocol is working...

Starting Strength website? Cause I can't find it.

I'll have to rewatch Rip's old videos on it, but I didn't get much out of them as far as helping with the pain. After watching an Alan Thrall video on how he dealt with it, I was able to get it mostly under control. For me, what's helped was to widen my grip a bit, but also able to keep a tight upper back, stop using a thumbless grip and allow some slight bend in the wrist, make sure to flex the lats so as to "break the bar" as they call it (which helps put things into tightness and alignment), and to make sure I'm not using my 3rd and 4th fingers (ring and pinky) much with the grip. It's not a 100% fix but has really made a difference for me. I'm not so sure "working through the pain" is a great idea, as Rip suggests, because the pain is your body saying "stop doing that". I image what really happens is that the lower intensity, higher volume (total for the workout) chin-ups sends more blood to the area, and more blood usually means faster/better healing. Inflammation is certainly natural for an acute injury, but it's not meant to linger, so I'm at a loss there and would default to Austin Baraki, et al.

did he say do chin ups?

wait I got golfers elbow from doing chinups. and this guy is telling me to... do more chinups? wtf rip

What grip to repair golfers elbow?

It’s not just about grip , Watch squat universities video on this subject it’s far more informative and effective, but I still love Rip

Has anyone tried Rip’s chin up technique to get rid of tendinitis? I have had tennis elbow for 6 months now and am going to try it. Just curious if anyone has had success with it. If it actually works as well as Rip says, he should get a shit ton of credit. The medical field still basically has no fucking clue what to do for elbow tendinitis other than to cut you open.

Cant it be operated on?

Isn't tendinits from too much work or stress on the joint also a thing? So rest can be useful. I mean it's called golfer's or tennis' elbow for a reason, I don't think proper technique is the main issue here.

hi

First! Yippie

Don't wear a helmet? You're gonna get hurt in a wreck anyway. So to Rip hurt and dead are the same. Why do people ask this guy anything other than training questions?

Bullshit complete Bullshit I did hundreds of chins perhaps several thousand, I got great at them and still have golfers elbow. The elbows still ache no matter the grip no matter the hand spacing no matter if my elbows are down no matter how I squeeze my shoulder blades together. Once you get "golfers elbow" from squatting it never heals up.

Didn’t work. Waste of time

terrible advice