Elbow pain can deleteriously affect your functional, fitness and sports performance. Moving your arms, such as when throwing a ball or doing chest and triceps exercises before you heal an elbow injury, prolongs your discomfort. Furthermore, if you engage your injured elbow, your injury will not heal properly, which diminishes its strength and function, giving rise to even more elbow problems. This makes triceps exercises progressively difficult to do over time.
Types of Injuries
Most elbow injuries involve an inflammation of the structures in and around your elbow. A bursa, or fluid-filled sac, lies between your skin and your elbow joint, which can often be irritated if you lean or land on your elbows such as in football, wrestling, excessive triceps exercises and even supporting yourself on a desk. The large, rounded parts of your arm bones may also become irritated from repetitive exercises like swinging a tennis racket or throwing a ball. Additionally, if you are an avid weight trainer, bending and straightening your arm during chest and triceps exercises irritates the insertion point of your triceps muscle just below your elbow.
Treat and Heal
The first thing you should do when triceps exercises generate elbow pain is to stop doing the exercise. If the pain grew from an occasional irritant to a constant bother, you should refrain from all arm exercises and activities that invoke pain. Whether the pain is from a bursa, a tendon or ligament in your elbow, the treatment is the same. The goal of initial care is to reduce the pain and swelling that is a natural part of the healing process. Apply a cold pack to your elbow three times a day for 10 minutes; do this for three days to alleviate pain and inflammation. Then apply a hot pack to your triceps for 10 minutes a day three times a day for two days; heat increases circulation and the removal of cellular waste at the site of the injury. Once pain and swelling have been significantly reduced, you may slowly begin range of motion and strengthening exercises to help your elbow heal properly. If the pain and swelling have not subsided, seek advanced care from a physical therapist.
Alternate Exercises
Certain triceps exercises can aggravate your elbow while others do not bother your joint. When you resume your training, try different triceps exercises in an attempt to find those that do not cause pain. If a barbell triceps exercise hurts your elbow, do the dumbbell form of the exercise. Triceps extensions over your head pull quite a bit on your elbows, so instead do triceps press-downs using a cable pulley, pressing a rope or bar from your chest toward your thighs. Consider doing an isometric contraction by straightening your arm and tightening your triceps for 10 reps in 20 seconds.
Time Off
Unfortunately, if a variety of triceps exercises produce elbow problems, you may need to take more time off from working your triceps directly. Keep in mind that when you do chest-pressing and shoulder-pressing exercises, you are also engaging your triceps, though not as intensely as triceps-specific exercises.
References
- "Examination of Musculoskeletal Injuries"; Sandra Shultz, Ph.D., et al.; 2005
- "Therapeutic Exercise for Musculoskeletal Injuries"; Peggy Houglum, Ph.D.; 2005
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