Daily Maestroism

DM #111

Sunday, September 11th, 2016

DM #111: If your elbow hurts, make sure you check out your lats. The lats play a big role in stabilizing that shoulder girdle, and when big muscles stop doing their job, little areas start getting unhappy.
One of the most common times you’ll see this relationship playing out is with folks who are complaining of medial elbow pain with pull-ups. Lifting your entire bodyweight is a big movement that is best initiated with big muscle groups. Find yourself imitating a pull-up by bending or moving your elbows, and pretty soon you’re going to find yourself with some elbow pain. Believe it or not, your tiny elbow ligaments were not designed to stabilize your shoulder and support your entire bodyweight.
In addition to depressing the scapula, the lat (in combination with other muscles) can adduct, medially rotate, and extend the humerus (upper arm). That means that if the lats are asleep at the wheel, we may begin to rely on smaller muscle groups and tissues like those found on the medial (inside) portion of your elbow to help perform these movements. Try to use your ulnar collateral ligament to adduct your humerus and it’ll get unhappy pretty quickly. For those of you that don’t speak anatomese, translation: try moving your big ass arm using about 2 inches of tissue/muscle. Recipe for disaster.

And trust me, just because your lats are huge and you think they're strong doesn't mean they're actually doing their job.
Long story short: treat the pain, but find and fix the cause. And as always, where you think it is, it ain’t!

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