Get Em’, Got Em’, Good: 1 Month Elbow Injury Recap

Introduction

I’ve had multiple people keep asking, “How the Elbow?”

You might be wondering what?

Elbow?

What’s wrong with your elbow?

Well, about one month ago, I popped my elbow a bit. Not sure what exactly, most likely a ligament (no muscle bulged or anything fancy like that), but it did hurt significantly the first 18 hours. Most of the pain relieved itself, and frankly now it’s just a matter of regaining ROM. Most of my current available ROM is already pain free, and besides a bit of joint instability every now and then, everything has been pretty dandy focusing on what I CAN do vs. what I can’t.

To give you a better picture of what actually happened, check out the below 1 month recap.

What Can’t I Do

There’s been a lot of issues in the beginning because the elbow I busted was my dominant hand. In general it kinda bummed my psyche a bit, I mean c’mon imagine being able to do quite a significant number of things and getting having to pretty much cut out almost all physical activity for quite a period of time.

Yes, the Movement is the shit. Yes, most likely because of Movement concepts I’ve sped up recovery; but do I wish I can speed it up further, of course.

Why wouldn’t I want that? And that was one of the biggest issue.

Can’t this be faster? Isn’t this shit suppose to work?

Frankly it’s pretty fast – most therapy and recovery programs don’t have most patients working on anything until about 6 weeks in. I was already able to do small unloaded elbow movements about 8 hours in. Good for my psyche, quite a bit.

I still have some issues past 90 degree elbow flexion and still cannot fully extend.
I still have some issues with full weight bearing on the right side.
I still have some issues with certain grip positions.

Do I focus on them, NO. Am I working around them, HELL YES. Is it making me better, FUDGE YEAH.

Am I working on them at times? A HELL TO THE YEAH.

What Can I Do

There’s plenty of things I find that I am able to do with the way my current elbow is. In general, passing any of the above elbow position ROM’s does make it act up a bit, so I try to make sure to be wary of pushing the ROM. Instead of trying to explain what I can do, here’s a clip.

If this injury has taught me anything, it’s more about the psychological implications any injury has…It’s crazy the emotions, feelings, and implications on what happened to me and in general gives me a better understanding of what many of my client’s go through as well.

Because of it, I feel better armed not just to tackle my own mental and physical issues; but that of my clients as well.

What’s the Overall Game Plan

1.) Continue working on what tests well keeping these movements of the Right Arm in mind:

Upper Arm
Horizontal Abduction & Adduction, Abduction, Adduction, Flexion, Extension, Rotation, Circumduction

Forearm
Flexion, Extension, Pronation, Supination

Wrist
Flexion, Extension, Ulnar and Radial Deviation

Fingers and Thumb
Abduction and Adduction, Opposition and Reposition, Flexion, Extension

Some of these movements have caused me issues, so there opposite movements tend to take me out of it. I also want to eventually find a way to manipulate these movements so the movement that does cause me pain I can eventually train it out as well.

2.) Avoiding motions of my arm that don’t test well. One of the key things Frankie Faires, one of the founders of the Movement sent me through email was sometimes it’s not about doing what tests well, but avoiding the movements that don’t.

I’ll leave you with that to chew on,

Darryl

Tags: Biofeedback Training, Easier Strength Training, Elbow Dislocation, Elbow Ligament Sprain, Elbow Sprain, Elbow Subluxation, Gym Movement, PREveryday