Steel Elbows Tutorial (Mechanics, Conditioning and Injury Prevention for Calisthenics)

in this video I'm going to explain how I condition my elbows to avoid pain and injuries while training calisthenics I've previously made videos on this topic for your wrists and your shoulders so I highly recommend you watch those videos as well as this one as you want to make sure all three of these joints are healthy and functioning as issues in the shoulders can cause issues at the elbow and so on as you become stronger in calisthenics and you progress onto harder and harder skills you'll find that you'll need to be strong in positions that

are naturally dangerous for your joints or positions that your muscles are naturally weak in for example a lot of movements will place your elbows in extreme positions which also end up placing the muscles around your elbows in extreme positions and not only this a lot of advanced calisthetics movements also add in the factor of mechanical disadvantage which means that in addition to using your muscles in extremely lengthened or shortened positions the direction of the force in relation to your arm placement is also going to be maxed out in terms of difficulty so to put it

simply if you want to be able to perform these movements without any pain or injuries you're going to need to be extremely strong in your biceps and triceps within the positions in which your muscles are extremely lengthened or shortened and if you look at the length tension curve of a muscle as you approach the extreme ranges of motion your muscles lose the ability to produce tension making you weaker in these positions however we're going to pay extra attention to working our muscles in its most lengthened position as these are the positions that place the highest

amount of stress on our connective tissues that connect our muscles to our elbows however we want to take this a step further and find out what the maxim lengthened and shortened positions of the biceps and triceps are and build strength in those positions to raise our threshold for injuries even higher so like I said your biceps are going to be relatively lengthened in any type of straight arm position however to maximally lengthen it we also would be lengthening the an anterior deltoid and basically our biceps in shoulder extension will be the position in which our

biceps are the most lengthened same goes for the tricep the tricep muscle is going to be lengthened in any sort of maximally bent arm position however to fully lengthen it we also want to lengthen the rear delts and the lats and our triceps in this range of motion is going to be most lengthened we also want to expand this to more than just the biceps and triceps but also be able to strengthen all of our forearm muscles especially at the ends of its range of motion so we want to strengthen our forearm flexors and its

most lengthened as well as its most shortened position which will be beneficial for injury proofing our inner elbow as well as our forearm extensors and its most lengthened as well as its most shortened position to get the most out of conditioning for our outer elbow and finally we want to get really strong at wrist pronation and superation as there are muscles responsible for the rotational movement of your wrist that will be extremely beneficial to strengthen if you want more elbow stability you should also know that whenever you place a certain amount of stress on your

tendons and connective tissues they will adapt and get stronger just like your muscles however they do take longer than your muscles to recover and get stronger between workouts and if you don't give your connective tissues enough time to recover you might continuously degrade them over time which may lead to either chronic pain or a traumatic injury a lot of people will tell you to avoid extreme ranges of motion if you don't want to get injured however if you actually do want to get strong in these positions you actually have to spend time in these positions

and methodically strengthen them to lessen the risk of your tendons being a limiting factor while you are training these difficult movements at a high intensity because of this you're going to want to limit the amount of high intensity work that you perform these joint heavy movements in so my conditioning routine consists of training these difficult ranges of motion at a very low intensity so the first step in conditioning is to assess your current range of motion for your elbows for example some people might not be able to fully straighten out their elbows and this can

be due to tightness in the bicep muscle caused by a past injury or lack of use and therefore if you want to extend your range of motion you're going to want to stretch your biceps as well as your forearm and shoulder muscles if you eventually want to be able to perform these straight arm movements with clean form and on the other hand you might not be a bble to fully close your elbow past a certain point which might be due to tightness in the tricep muscle or a past injury on the outside of your elbow

to increase your range of motion for your tricep you not only want to stretch out the tricep muscle itself but also perform stretches through the muscles that the triceps are connected to such as the rear delt and the lats in order for you to be prepared in case you ever need this range of motion knowing your range of motion is important because whenever you are working out and you suddenly ENT enter a range of motion that you're not used to this puts you at a high risk of getting injured on the other hand some of

you might have what's called elbow hyperextension which you're able to bend your elbow past 180° if you find that this is the case for you you are slightly more at risk for elbow pain however you should still follow the same approach that I'm going to be showing in this video which is to gain the ability to activate and strengthen your bicep throughout all of your ranges of motion so that you can relieve some of the pressure off of your joints themselves in addition to extending and flexing your elbow you also want to play around with

wrist movements throughout these different positions and use movement as a way to check for any areas that you might experience stiffness or pain because if you experience pain without moving any type of weight it is highly unlikely that you'll be able to perform a heavy movement without getting an even worse pain or an injury once you've checked all of your movement patterns we can move on to loading these movements with a very light resistance so you can feel what it's like to actually use your muscles throughout these extreme ranges of motion so let's start with

the biceps in addition to regular bicep curls you can also perform movements which really bias the most shortened position of your bicep which like I mentioned previously is a position that your bicep is naturally weakened and then we're going to work on movements that really bias our biceps in its most lengthened position these behind the back curls are a great way to experience what it's like to use your bicep from its most injury-prone position without risking actual injuries I recommend when you perform these to really concentrate and slow down the movement especially the Ecentric when

you are straightening your elbow back out under a load so that you can feel your biceps continue to activate all the way through its most lengthened position once you're comfortable with this movement and you're really able to feel your bicep being worked from a straight arm position you can try moving your shoulders while keeping your elbows straight throughout different shoulder positions to prepare you for how straight arm pushing movements feel in addition to this you can work on wrist movements such as wrist flexion or rotations while your bicep and anterior deltoid are fully lengthened to

really establish the connection throughout all of these muscles next up let's talk about the tricep in addition to regular tricep extensions which is a great all-around movement for the tricep we also want to select some movements that bias our triceps in its most shortened range now the triceps in its most shortened range is important for straight arm pulling movements in which required to keep your elbows locked through pure strength of the tricep again really focus on slowing down and controlling the lockout portion of this movement and as you get more comfortable with this you can

also work in the shortening of your rear deltoid to increase the difficulty by performing the tricep extensions as far back as you can go which results in you being able to use your tricep and shoulder extension once you're comfortable with this movement you can work on using your rear deltoid to pull your straight arms back behind you while keeping your elbows locked which simulates the movement of a straight arm pulling movement and lastly you're going to want to be able to perform wrist movements while your triceps are fully locked out particularly wrist extensions and also

rotations you can do overhead tricep extensions and this movement is also great because you're working your triceps while your lats and your rear delts are fully lengthened making this the most injury-prone position to work your triceps in you can also work on your wrist rotations in a bent arm position if the straight arm position is too difficult for you wrist rotation is often overlooked as there's not a good way to directly load up this movement with just your body weight as the muscles responsible for this movement also connect at the elbow my advice to you

is to experiment with different movements with a light weight and as long as you using a low intensity resistance throughout a range of motion that you know you can do without any weights there's no such thing as a dangerous or bad movement these are also great for generating blood flow to your joints which is very important if you want to be able to use them at their maximum capacity another thing you can do during your workouts is to wear compression garments CU these serve the purpose of generating more blood flow to whatever area is under

compression but if you would like the exact sleeves the I use I have a link in the description if you would like to grab a pair as well as support me and lastly once you're comfortable with with all of these movements and you're sure that your joints are able to function at a normal level you can try out some of these applied exercises at this point you should already be very comfortable with all of the basic elements in cisic such as push-ups pull-ups and dips as these movements are the best for getting all of your

joints conditioned at the beginning of your training Journey however these next exercises are ones that you can incorporate into your workout to further build up and test your elbows strength because the following movements will be slightly more challenging than your elbows than regular Basics so I highly recommend working on these slowly and making sure that you can perform these as controlled and pain-free as possible these following exercises are simply isolation work that you can do for your biceps and triceps with different variations targeting these muscles at different lengths because high intensity work or going heavy

poses the most risk for injuries especially in these movements that will Target get your muscles in relatively weak positions you're going to want to keep the intensity low so you can focus on full control and concentration so that you can identify and solve any wake points to increase the difficulty you can simply elevate your feet in relation to your grip or decrease the difficulty by lowering your feet or shortening the lever that is your body over time aim to go deeper and deeper with these exercises so that you can get the stretch all the way

through the shoulder muscles that either your biceps or triceps are connected to for maximum conditioning of the muscles in the most lengthened range so all in all this is a general overview of my approach to Elbow conditioning at the end of the day whatever you need to condition depends on what you are training for and whatever your limitations may be which can be different from person to person these exercises I show you simply break down the components of the elbow into isolation movements so that you can try each of these out to search for wherever

you might be lacking some people have naturally stronger joints than others and therefore might not need as much conditioning ultimately we need to do whatever we have to do in search of our fitness goals and one more thing this conditioning routine is meant to go hand inand with proper rest recovery and nutrition in order to keep you safe from injuries during your training journey and maintain steady progress over time you should experiment with whatever works for you and you can use the exercises such as the on shown in this video to craft your personal warm-up

and conditioning routine anyways I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next [Music] one