Athletes' Potential

  • Home
  • Physical Therapy
    • Atlanta ACL Physical Therapy
    • Atlanta Runners
  • Blog
  • Testimonials
  • About Us
  • CONTACT US
  • Podcast
  • Home
  • Physical Therapy
    • Atlanta ACL Physical Therapy
    • Atlanta Runners
  • Blog
  • Testimonials
  • About Us
  • CONTACT US
  • Podcast

Become the HERO of your own HEALTH

Inquire About Cost and Availability

Don’t Blame Your Elbow: Check Your Shoulders!

1/17/2017

5 Comments

 
Elbow pain can be one of the most irritating and inconvenient issues.  I once had a patient say that the most painful part of his day was just cutting butter for his toast in the morning.
​

Classically, we tend to blame the tissues at the joint—wrist extensors/flexors.  Sure, the common insertion for these muscles becomes inflamed, but what causes that?  I like to view the elbow similarly to the knee; it is a joint that is pushed and pulled on either side by very complex joints. The shoulders will largely influence the biomechanics of your elbow and the amount of torque that passes through the joint. 

Although somewhat simplified, we could group you as either tight and immobile or mobile and bendy.  Each characteristic has its own pros and cons, but the cons are where pain manifests.  With decreased shoulder mobility and/or control, the elbow will take the brunt of the force when lifting weights or swinging a racquet.  Shoulder stabilization and control are important for correct biomechanics of the shoulder girdle and upper extremity.  Lack of control upstream, allows more movement downstream at the elbow.  The repetitive, small insults at the elbow joint will eventually result in elbow pain. ​
Inquire About Cost & Availability
Picture
Hammering away at the soft tissue around the elbow is often where athletes start when self-treating.   Don’t get me wrong, a little forearm smash with a lacrosse ball or barbell is great.  But if it does not improve your problems, move on!  In this case, we are going to check out the shoulder.
Less mobile folks:  To decrease the torque at the elbow, it would be ideal to improve both the external rotation (front rack) and flexion (overhead position) or your shoulder.  Tight lats can often be the cause of the restrictions.  Try these two mobility pieces:
​
  1. Supinated (palms up) hang on pull up bar- band around my upper arm is to increase external rotation when I move my hands apart.  Be sure to ease into this one! Begin with hands slightly closer and ease your body down.  Keep your feet on the floor to control the amount of body weight through the arms.  Ideally, you will have your head between your arms, torso and pelvis straight beneath you and pelvis tucked under.   This will help with the front rack and overhead lift for weightlifters; athletes this will also help you overhead with throwing/swinging.
  2. Overhead distraction- stretching same leg back and across to take up slack in the tissues on the side of the body.  Try to keep the palm up and feel free to move the torso a bit to feel a stretch in different areas.
Picture
Picture
More mobile folks: Shoulder stabilization is going to be the key for you.  A simple way to start on this is kettlebell carries, all variations!  Here are two simple, yet effective stabilization drills:
​
  1. Heavy farmer’s carry- simply holding a relatively heavy kettlebell in one hand. Avoid leaning far to one side and allowing the kettlebell to rest on your leg.  Keep it slightly spaced.  Choose a distance and incorporate into warm ups or go until fatigue- grip gives out or form falters.​
  2. Waiter’s carry- arm and shoulder in 90/90.  As you get tired, your elbow will tend to drift outward or down so stay aware of the position.  We like to perform these as a bottoms up carry, so the bottom of the bell remains facing the ceiling throughout. Go until form fatigue!
Picture
Picture
As always, do a movement screen/ form check first.  Get a coach or super friend to watch you move and see if they notice any faults.  Racquet sport athletes—if you constantly have elbow pain, check your grip size.  Grips too small or too large can cause elbow issues as well.  If you are a desk jockey, check out your work station and the ergonomics!

Try these mobility exercises and tips out.  If you continue to have issues, come see us at Athletes’ Potential.  We see elbow pain often and are able to effectively treat it with an evaluation! Keep devoting time to making your body work and feel better.


Thanks,
​

    Dr. Jackie, PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS
Inquire About Cost & Availability
5 Comments

Wrist Pain? Fix Your Shoulders!

8/17/2016

0 Comments

 
In the words of Jay-Z, “I’ve got 99 problems but wrist pain ain’t one.”
Well, maybe those aren’t his exact words but since I’m actively giving up using profanity (which is very hard to do) we’ll keep this quote the way it is. We know that Jay-Z doesn’t have wrist pain but in the last CrossFit Movement and Mobility Trainer Course I taught, about half of the class had wrist issues. Usually when I informally poll the class to see what problems most people are having, back pain comes up number one. This weekend wasn’t any different until the Sunday course. Wrist issues were a plague for this group, predominately in the front rack position. So we spent a ton of time working on the wrists right? Wrong. We fixed their shoulders!

How many of you have seen big strong guys/gals that can back squat a ton of weight but when you get them to front squat their weight drastically decreases? These are typically males that used to love bro'ing out at some globe gym where everyday is bench press day. They are pretty strong but have never put in some legitimate mobility work in their lives.
                                                                   Don't be this freaking guy!

Let’s be clear on one thing: There are many reasons for why someone could have a very weak front squat compared to their back squat. In this example, however, we are going to focus on improving the front rack position and unloading the wrist. The higher you can keep your elbows during the entire range of motion of a front squat, the easier that movement will be. High elbows also allow for the wrist to be unloaded during the lift. 

How do we get those nice high elbows? By having enough shoulder flexion and lateral rotation. In coaching terms this allows us to keep our arms parallel with the ground and maintain a strong front rack position. There are multiple problems that occur when the elbows start to drop in the front rack. It’s a huge loss of force production potential but also puts the poor wrists in a terrible position. 
Inquire About Cost & Availability
Picture
         A combination of these two movements at the shoulder makes up the front rack position.

​Here’s a quick test. Un-rack a decent amount of weight (75-90% of your 1RM front squat) and hold it in your front rack position like the example in the top section of the picture below. See how your wrists feel and see if you can hold it for 30-45 seconds. Now do the same test but hold the weight in the position like the athlete in the bottom of the picture below.  No wrist wraps allowed!
Which one were you able to hold longer? Which one felt more comfortable?

For the majority of athletes the first position will feel dramatically easier when holding the load. If you have terrible front rack mobility you will always end up in some variation of the dreaded lowered elbow position. This is wrecking havoc on your wrists and costing you PRs. If your wrists hurt, fix your shoulders!

Now how do we fix the shoulders? Here is an old school (2011) MWOD video of Kelly going over fixing the front rack position. If you haven’t checked out Mwod recently, you really need to. MWOD Pro is only $8 a month and has new mobility techniques to help improve your performance and resolve pain everyday. That’s about the cost of two lattes! In the words of Kelly himself, “make a better decision.”

​Take a crack at fixing this stuff yourself first! If you're still having issues, come and see us at Athletes' Potential! If you don't live in the Atlanta area, check out this out the 4 Keys To Picking The Right Physical Therapist in your area. 

- Danny, PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS
Inquire About Cost & Availability
0 Comments
    Picture

    PT Knowledge

    Dr. Danny and staff's views on performance improvement, injury prevention, and sometimes other random thoughts.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    2015 Review
    Active Atlanta Podcast
    Atlanta
    Australia
    Back Pain
    Blood Flow Restriction
    Boston
    Breathing
    Concussion
    CrossFit
    Deadlift
    Double Under
    Dr. Danny
    Dr. Jacob
    Dr. Marcus
    Dr. Ravi
    Dr. Sam
    Front Rack
    Healthcare & Insurance
    Jumping
    Jumping Rope
    Knee Pain
    Mobility
    Muscles
    Neck Pain
    Nutrition
    Overtraining
    Pelvic Floor
    Performance
    Physical Therapy
    PhysioCoach
    Postpartum
    Pregnancy
    Recovery
    Rehab
    Running
    Shoulder
    Sitting
    Sleep
    Soccer
    Speed & Agility
    Squatting
    Standing Desk
    Stress Management
    Stretching
    Swim
    Tennis
    Warming Up
    Work
    Youth Sports

    Archives

    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014


Contact Us:

533 W Howard Ave, C1
Decatur, GA 30030
        
​Phone: 470-355-2106
Fax Number: 404-382-7293


info@athletespotential.com   ​
Athletes' Potential

About Us
Contact Us
Services
​
Corporate Wellness
​
Resources

Active Atlanta Podcast
​Blog
​Testimonials
​FAQ
Patient Portal
Book Now
​© Copyright 2016 Athletes' Potential, LLC.  All rights reserved.      
This website does not provide medical advice and does not direct that you undertake any specific exercise or training/rehabilitation regimen.  Consult with a physician before undertaking any information found on this website. All visitors to this site must consent to Terms of use and Notice of Privacy Practice.