Excruciating Forearm pain, need help

denmase

denmase

New member
Ive put on a little weight here recently and gotten stronger, YAAAYYY!! But my skinny forearms dont seem to be liking the amount of weight im pressing, rowing, or curling, especially curling, i get an excruciating sharp pain in my forearms whenever i put the weight down, i dont know how to solve the problem, will be taking the rest of the week off so hopefully i will get recovered...

p.s.- i drive a forklift 8 hours a day 5 to 6 days a week and im pretty sure thats not helping at all either
 
I have had this problem off and on for a while. The best thing to do is avoid exercises that give you the most pain all you need here is time for the area to heal. I know that bb curls really cause the most discomfort for me so I usually focus on DBs for biceps and avoid other exercises that cause this to happen. Over time it should get better I dont think there is really anything that can be done to treat it. Maybe some relaxation creams and massaging the area. Sure others will chime in though.
 
i was wondering if taping my wrists or something would help, my arms are long as **** and my forearms still little in my eyes, i guess i need to work them out more often and quit whining
 
Where is your pain more specifically? Muscle / tendon / bone? I have pain in my Ulna (bone that attaches on the pinky side of the hand) sometimes when I over-use an EZ-curl bar. Like you, it really hurts right after i set weight down. If this is where your pain is, I would recommend trying different grips for certain lifts until you find something that doesn't bother you. I wouldnt think it involves having weak forearms like you suggested, unless you find it hard to hold on when doing a back workout...
Anyway, identifying what it is thats hurting you is essential to coming up with a plan to heal!
 
denmase said:
i was wondering if taping my wrists or something would help, my arms are long as **** and my forearms still little in my eyes, i guess i need to work them out more often and quit whining
Click to expand...

working out your forearms more may make the problem worse (it did in my case). Best scenario that I discovered was to reduce volume of arm work for a few weeks until the problem got better and I never do any direct forearm work (I tried that approach only made it worse)
 
definitely feels like the bone is hurting, feels as if its cracking, it was the ez-curl bar that initiated the pain
 
Make sure to never touch an EZ-curl bar that is bent. I know I know, all EZ curls bars are bent... What I mean is that a new or well treated EZ bar has angled grips that are still perfectly on axis with the center of the weights. If the bars are left weighted on preacher stands, they bend over time. This bending means the grips move out of the axis of the weights. This will put nasty torque on your wrists, and you will feel the bar trying to bend in your palm as you curl it upwards. If you have ever been to a planet fitness, you have seen bars like this... This torque can lead to stress injuries in the Ulna ( sounds like what you have ) or irritation of the tendons that move your fingers and wrist ( some of which sit right next to the Ulna, and irritation of these can feel similar to bone pain).

beware of the old and mistreated EZ bar!!!! Anyway, it healed up pretty good for me once I kept away from the bad EZ bar at my gym, hopefully you have a speedy recovery as well. Icing can do wonders for both bone and tendon injuries, so try to nurse it a little bit at night
 
I've had the same problem a few times before too.. It went away when I started doing a bit more forearm work and went lighter in weight. It only really seems to kick up when I try to advance my weight more, then I end up backpedaling and dropping a lot again.. I think since I fell off doing more forearm work since the pain went away it's come back again. But I have the same pain, it's right on the ulnar side of the forearm and shoots right from the pinky to about halfway down and feels like excruciating pain in the bone.. I had an MRI done and my doc said that everything's perfectly normal, it could be tendinitis.. Started doing forearm curls, forearm twists (really light when starting to not aggravate the pain) and a flexbar seemed to help when I actually used them. Good luck man.
 
IMO you may need to work on your grip strength. You can do that by performing pulling motions with heavy weights, i.e. barbell rows, RDL, & deadlifts, without staps of course. By heavy I mean as heavy as you can handle and still maintain reasonable form. Also, again IMO, don't do curls. They're an awkward motion with bad leverage, which makes it impossible to go heavy and therefore they should be avoided. IMO, the best bicep exercise is probably chinups, which btw also work your grip pretty well.

Since you're having pain when doing curls, now might be a good time to give them a rest and try something else.

P.S. In case it's not clear, grip strength = forearm size, so increasing your grip strength will make your forearms grow.
 
Massage it regularly with a hard lacrosse ball. It kills, but it works. It's as simple as that :)

Do it as maintenance too, as you train, and you'll avoid tweaking it again. Full body mobility work is the best thing we can do as maintenance to prevent injury and to help ensure proper form. Body maintenance is as necessary as flossing your teeth to prevent decay.
 
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