Arm pain while squatting, help me troubleshoot this

[pinkminx]

Wrist/elbow/forearm pain when squatting. There's something wrong with my arm position, I think, but all the "lift your elbows higher" advice doesn't seem to be changing it. I wonder if I'm also sitting too straight up because of all the front squats I've been doing

Comments

[creon454]

When I've had wrist pain squatting, I just put wrist wraps on and it helps. I don't even put them on tight, but just a little bit of pressure seems to make a lot of difference. Not sure what you are talking about with elbows up, in a back squat I've always pushed them down some. Video would help a lot. Also, I always direct people to this Dave Tate video for helping with the squat setup. The video is for Box Squats, but the setup should be the same. If you elbow really hurts, could always look into using a safety squat bar. I also have played around with my hand position when I had pain, some widths I used to have pain and a little wider felt better

[pinkminx]

Well, ass, I'm an idiot.

I used to squat with elbows under the bar, started having trouble and read up on form... only, somehow I misread "elbows under bar, never up" as "elbows up." Aaahhhh, here we go.

I have bad enough pain now I probably shouldn't even be typing this, but, ha, thanks-- your mentioning elbow position got the little gears moving in my head at last.

[lilamp]

this may or may not be related to your issue, but since my rotator cuff surgery and subsequent frozen shoulder, i haven't been able to get back to a back squat yet due to not enough exterior rotation range in that shoulder. this manifests as elbow pain because the shoulder doesn't rotate back far enough to take pressure off the elbow.

[cheez_ball]

I have terrible wrists and get extreme pain when squatting anything more than just the bar. Supportive wrist straps help tremendously.

[hajiomatic]

I don't put my hands in the classic position when I front squat
I cross them and rest them on my collar bones....so the left hand is on the right side and the right hand is on the left side
this just stabilizes the bar and my collar bones take most of the weight

I don't squat often and I don't load up the weight
I just do it when I want to give the quads a boost