I have been lifting weights since the end of January, and for the last week or so, I have been having dull, sometimes sharp, pain at my wrists and extending to my forearms. The pain would intensify, especially when I did barbell curls. I went out and got me a "protective" glove that lends support plus a wrap for my other arm. Well, today was the worst pain yet. I'm pretty sure that what I have is forearm splints or shin splints in the forearm. I'm taking a break from lifting starting Wednesday (maybe even tomorrow) and not resuming again until next Monday. I'm also going to quit doing barbell curls and do another biceps exercise (that hopefully is not as stressful on my arms). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will help alleviate the pain, but I really don't know when it will go away completely. I just want to be able to work out without worrying about some pain developing into a more serious injury. I take it that shin splints (I used to be a runner but I'm not anymore) is the same way...very painful and hard to get rid of. Does anyone know of some other ways to get rid of these pains in the ass, I mean forearms/legs? Maybe I'm just a p***y, but damn, the pain today almost made me want to quit lifting altogether.
Having done this several times, I can tell you you aren't getting rid of them without rest. The problem is that the muscles that bend your forarms in aren't strong enough to handle the strain on them. For the meantime, eliminate exercises that put strain on these muscles. Then, when you're all healed up, spend some time on goofy exercises like wrist curls to strengthen these muscles.
I had shin splints in college and had to deal with them until the season was over, then just rested them. They tried to treat them during the season (pulling the arches up with tape, ultra sound, whirlpools, etc) but nothing worked until I had time to rest them. Nover had forearm splint sbut if they're similar I feel for you. They hurt like he11 and not a thing you can do about them.
How much rest are you typically giving yourself? I started running when I quit drinking, and I had so much energy that I was running about a mile or so every single day. Within three weeks, I had pain in both knees so bad that I couldn't even jog a few steps. I stopped for a week, started cross-training (mountain biking), and now as long as I run every other day (or two days in a row at most), I can run with absolutely no pain. Maybe you're not letting the body recuperate....?
When I used to circuit train (I say this laughing hysterically while looking at my current gut), my workout buddies and I used to stagger the workouts. We would only work on arms Mon., Wed., Fri., then work on legs Tue., Thu. We'd do cardio every day.
Shin splints are caused when the loop type tendon that hold your tibia and fibula together are stretched/strained. Tendons take a long time to heal, especially when you don't rest them. I would assume forearm splints work on the same basis. Are you using a straight bar to curl? Try a cambered bar. Lay off for a little while or do some exercises aside ffrom curls to strengthen your arms. If you're looking for big arms, the tricep is actually the muscle that makes your arms look big. Try some lighter weight and do preacher curls. Chinups will work your biceps as well. BTW, I was a coach for ten years. If you're in a little pain, it's ok to try to work through it, but listen to your body. If you're hurting yourself, lay off. and don't try to "work through" bursitis...you'll lose.
Well, it was really hard for me to lay out today, but I did just to be safe. I have come up with a couple of different exercises that hopefully combined with almost a week's worth of rest will help. I probably have been doing too much weight, but I honestly thought that too much would be undoable. And I have had no problems, really, in doing a barbell curl of 75 - 80 pounds. Oh well....this sucks
