Pain/Tightness in forearm. Tendonitis??

So I've been climbing for about 2 months or so and this last month got a membership at a local climbing gym so I've been climbing about 3 times a week for about 2 hours at a time and I've been experiencing this pain in my forearm right below my wrist on the top side of my forearm after I let go of holds and only last for maybe a second or two after I let go. So I looked into it on the web and I haven't found very much relating to the specific area, most of the articles I've read are about climbers elbow so I'm just trying to see if anyone has had similar symptoms. I've also had a bit of climbers elbow on top of it so I've been doing the standard recommended workouts like reverse wrist curls, pronator exercises, a little bit of rice bucket stuff and the obvious forearm stretches. Do I just need to keep doing these exercises? Do I need to stop climbing for a few months? S.O.S.

That does not sound like tendonitis to me, though it is hard to tell from writing without a face-to-face back and forth. Symptoms of tendonitis in my experience are deeply felt dull to sharp pain in the injured part of the body when using the injured part of the body, in direct proportion to the load experienced by that part of the body. This includes minor use of that part of the body including (depending on which part of the body) with everyday things like opening doors, opening jars, writing, etc. If you feel you have tendonitis then in my experience you need to balance out the joint nearest to where you are feeling the pain, which in this case would most likely be the belly of your forearm. Thus I would see if doing some pumpier climbing makes it better or worse. Be careful if you do this and don't mix in any high intensity moves, just keep things consistent in terms of movement difficulty and avoid suddenly loading the joint, and if the pain gets worse then stop. As long as this does not aggravate your arm (which you know based on the pain response), the blood flow and mild tissue damage induced by this can be therapeutic and healing.

Barring that it sounds like maybe it is some acute injury. If you think this is the case then the answer is resting. You wont lose appreciable muscle mass or ability in 2 weeks, so you can take 2 weeks off without any real concerns. If you can afford it, go see a doctor, preferably someone with experience treating climbers. FWIW, major tissue damage typically takes 6-8 weeks to heal, so if it is an acute injury it needs to be unaggravated for this long in order to heal, and during this time it is best to keep your body active, vibrant, and alive in order to promote your body to embrace life and really put its resources into healing itself. You want to send your body the message: heal up, you have so much left to live for.

Lastly, for inflammation in tendons related to tendon injuries I have found lemongrass essential oil to be useful for reducing the inflammation and promoting healing. Small bottles of it can be found for $5-$10. I don't feel anything with it upon application, but the next day it feels significantly better. Sweet marjoram also comes up for this, so you might try that one as well. Good luck figuring out and addressing your injury, and I hope this helps.

Look up "forearm splints". It happens sometimes with body builders and weight lifters whose biceps are stronger than their forearms and when doing curling motions the wrist tries to over compensate. It happens to me when I do preacher curls but i also get it when i haven't climbed for a while and spend the day doing juggy overhung climbing in the gym. Reverse curls are a good way to help strengthen your forearms and alleviate some of the pain.

^^^I have found this exercise

to be the most effective for strengthening the top of the forearm if that turns out to be the culprit.

I've had some stuff where the release of a hold brings out the pain, pushups and reverse forearm roll-ups cleared up mine quick (like nearly overnight)

Icepacks are also time tested good for inflammation. 15mins of indirect contact (towel over the icepack) a night can do wonders.

You might want to try and find one of the route setters at your gym and talk to them about it, they usually have been climbing and training for a while and have probably seen a lot of different types of injuries. Or see a doctor, they know a thing or two about the body.

I've had very similar symptoms where my right forearm flexors get really pumped after gym climbing and I'm sore for the next day(s). I actually posted about this like two winters ago because I naively thought I had flexor compartment syndrome.

I just needed a lot more rest. Gym climbing is just too easy to over do it. I never receive these symptoms climbing outside. TheI still get these symptoms when I first start climbing regularly in the gym come winter. Rest, ice, massage and stretching might help. I think the real answer is more time away with light aerobic exercise to get the blood moving into your arms. I know I over trained and worked myself into a deep hole that took a while to come out of. It's so hard to do, but listen to your body and take it slow.

Jerome P wrote:Look up "forearm splints". It happens sometimes with body builders and weight lifters whose biceps are stronger than their forearms and when doing curling motions the wrist tries to over compensate. It happens to me when I do preacher curls but i also get it when i haven't climbed for a while and spend the day doing juggy overhung climbing in the gym. Reverse curls are a good way to help strengthen your forearms and alleviate some of the pain.

I looked it up and this matches my symptoms perfectly. Thanks for the tip!

JNE wrote:^^^I have found this exercise to be the most effective for strengthening the top of the forearm if that turns out to be the culprit.

Definitely going to try and put on of these little contraptions together this afternoon.

You might have nerve irritation/compression. I use to do that exercise, it didn't do much and think this is better. It identical to what eventually was recommened to me by a new PT and one of my climbing friends. I got back into climbing much stronger as a result of this after 3 years of really bad chronic problems. No doctor or PT seemed to able to help and they actually said they were out of ideas and sent me to a chronic pain specialist.

rockandice.com/lates-news/r…
For #7-8 I substitute a 5 ft PVC pipe (my climbing gym has 3 of these lying around) and you can vary intensity by the length gripped.
See video at 5 min mark, youtube.com/watch?v=TeEvXlu…

I have cts, tendonitis several places, tenosynovitis, and median nerve issues. The median nerve issues are sharp pain and swelling around my wrist, mostly the inside, but it radiates from my thumb all the way up to my upper bicep/shoulder.

I just randomly pulled up this article but maybe worth looking through, emedicine.medscape.com/arti…

^^^That is how people who sit on the couch should heal these injuries. People who injured themselves because their joints could not take the forces they were putting on them, and who do not mind a little extra hard work in pursuit of their passion, need to take a different approach.

JNE wrote:^^^That is how people who sit on the couch should heal these injuries. People who injured themselves because their joints could not take the forces they were putting on them, and who do not mind a little extra hard work in pursuit of their passion, need to take a different approach.

I mean I do own a couch and have been known to sit on it from time to time.

Young Finn the Climber wrote: I mean I do own a couch and have been known to sit on it from time to time.

Lol. Then change your climbing routine (including eliminating any high intensity moves from your workouts) and do NCD's recommended inflammation reduction routine. Otherwise throw some lemongrass oil on it (peppermint if it is muscle cramps) and get after working it at the highest intensity hypertrophy level it will tolerate. This will also induce bloodflow, which is the point of NCD's workout, plus it has the added benefit of boosting HGH and the signal for that specific place to receive said HGH and thus grow. You don't want to overdo it if it's inflamed but rest, massage, and anything to improve blood flow including maximal use of your arm is best for that.

Some data indicates that those reverse exercises (lifting the weight up and then muscularly, as opposed to somehow using the tendons to do so, lowering it) help healing by inducing bloodflow into the tendon, so perhaps they have a place in bringing down the inflammation, but they are a band-aid and not a fix.

The physical therapist called the benefit of only lowering and lifting back up with the other hand "strengthening by elongating". I think it is trying to stretch out the tendons while isolating the strength building to them, increase blood flow, release pressure, etc.

JNE wrote:^^^That is how people who sit on the couch should heal these injuries. People who injured themselves because their joints could not take the forces they were putting on them, and who do not mind a little extra hard work in pursuit of their passion, need to take a different approach.

I really dont see your point here? Just a joke or being serious? its hard to catch your sarcasm if it's implied. That article is geared towards climbers and active people.

NCD wrote: I really dont see your point here? Just a joke or being serious? its hard to catch your sarcasm if it's implied. That article is geared towards climbers and active people.

No, it is geared toward the mean of people who, in the contemporary U.S., self-identify as both "outdoorsy" and "active".

I have tried those routines, and while they did well to reduce the inflammation, as soon as I resumed normal activities the problems came right back.

I think so much of climbing training right now is predicated on the notion of adding exactly 0 extra mass if possible (something I think the whole of athletics demonstrates to have exactly 0 merit as a philosophy), and I would place that article firmly in that camp.

NCD wrote:The physical therapist called the benefit of only lowering and lifting back up with the other hand "strengthening by elongating". I think it is trying to stretch out the tendons while isolating the strength building to them, increase blood flow, release pressure, etc.

That is what they think. I think it works to reduce inflammation because it works the muscle (and thus the tendon), but not enough to cause more damage. Thus it increases blood flow and healing goodness while not increasing damage. A light hypertrophy routine would do the same thing, and I would argue both of these should be avoided if one experiences a significant or sharp increase in the pain while doing them. As I understand it, the program you recommend is best used for times when ANY loading causes significant pain, in which case the light reverse loading is all the muscle can handle without increasing damage.

JNE wrote: As I understand it, the program you recommend is best used for times when ANY loading causes significant pain, in which case the light reverse loading is all the muscle can handle without increasing damage.

In my case that sort of seems to be the situation. I am not healed yet and still trying to work this out but I have certainly improved and am able to climb without pain at a much higher level.

I am curious as you call this a band aid fix and not long-term. What specific exercises have you found to be more effective? The string and weight curls video you linked are very similar to the exercises I posted. One thing about the dumb-bell curls I like is I can stretch at the same time.

NCD wrote: In my case that sort of seems to be the situation. I am not healed yet and still trying to work this out but I have certainly improved and am able to climb without pain at a much higher level. I am curious as you call this a band aid fix and not long-term. What specific exercises have you found to be more effective? The string and weight curls video you linked are very similar to the exercises I posted. One thing about the dumb-bell curls I like is I can stretch at the same time.

Interestingly, those exact exercise with the addition of the frying pan exercise with the pan held toward the ground and then lifted up and out in a 90 degree arc, plus replacing the barbell exercises with the rope weight roller thing as previously discussed. I do all the exercises at a high intensity hypertrophy level, so sets such that you are approaching near failure at 20-30 quicker reps or 12-24 slower reps. Also do everything except the exercises shown in your picture in figures 7 and 8 with the arms held straight out in front of you (do the ones in figures 7 and 8 with your arm bent and at your side or laying on a table as shown) to put an extra count on your front delts. I do these, in addition to stretching, as part of my regular climbing routine.

The advice that's been given here is crap, absolute crap. See a physician.

Young Finn the Climber wrote: So I've been climbing for about 2 months or so and this last month got a membership at a local climbing gym so I've been climbing about 3 times a week for about 2 hours at a time and I've been experiencing this pain in my forearm right below my wrist on the top side of my forearm after I let go of holds and only last for maybe a second or two after I let go. So I looked into it on the web and I haven't found very much relating to the specific area, most of the articles I've read are about climbers elbow so I'm just trying to see if anyone has had similar symptoms. I've also had a bit of climbers elbow on top of it so I've been doing the standard recommended workouts like reverse wrist curls, pronator exercises, a little bit of rice bucket stuff and the obvious forearm stretches. Do I just need to keep doing these exercises? Do I need to stop climbing for a few months? S.O.S.

Hey man! I would love to hear if you ever found a solution for this or if it got better for you. I have been battling this exact issue for a very long time, and I am getting really frustrated about it. Would really appreciate if you would take the time to reply!

Best,

Phil

From a technique perspective maybe try climbing with a straighter wrist when possible. Using the three finger drag instead of crimping may also help (kinda forces a straighter wrist).