Lifting and arm pain. Advice?

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juiletflt
juiletflt Posts: 159
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello everyone. So, I recently started to lift heavy and I LOVE it! Except for one small problem:

When I do anything where the barbell is on my shoulders (squat, reverse lunge, etc.) and I am holding onto the bar, I have an incredible amount of pain in my arms. Not a "I'm working hard and it feels good" kind of pain. It feels like something is wrong, the entire arm (especially my bicep) aches like mad. What really bothers me about this that my legs, etc could be lifting a lot more weight, but my arms won't allow it. Something’s not right here.

I do stretch before I lift. My arms are quite flexible, so I don't think it's a range of motion issue. Anyone else have this problem? Any ideas? Advice?

Thank you so much!

Replies

  • Walter__
    Walter__ Posts: 518 Member
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    Adjust your grip width on the bar. Either make it more narrow or wide.. experiment with what feels better.

    And make sure that you are pulling your shoulder blades together. Squeeze them together as hard as you can. Imagine you have an orange between your shoulder blades and you're trying to squeeze the **** out of it. Maintain this tightness throughout the entire set.
  • navyrigger46
    navyrigger46 Posts: 1,301 Member
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    It's either range of motion, or joints that are not yet up to the task. Stretching and light warm up sets should help.

    Rigger
  • murphy612
    murphy612 Posts: 734 Member
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    I had a similar issue with elbow pain. It turned out my shoulders were not very flexible. So I widened the grip and went with a thumb-less grip until I worked on flexibility.
  • juiletflt
    juiletflt Posts: 159
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    Thanks for the advice. I'll try the sqeeze the orange thing tonight.

    I have been playing with the grip width, making it wider helps a bit, but not much.

    As far as range of motion is concerned, I quite certain that is not the issue. I can easily grab my hands behind my back and pull my hands up to above my head with my arms straight
  • shor0814
    shor0814 Posts: 559 Member
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    Thanks for the advice. I'll try the sqeeze the orange thing tonight.

    I have been playing with the grip width, making it wider helps a bit, but not much.

    As far as range of motion is concerned, I quite certain that is not the issue. I can easily grab my hands behind my back and pull my hands up to above my head with my arms straight

    What kind of pain? If it is a shooting pain like your arm is falling asleep you might adjust your wrist position to a straighter angle.

    Agreed with the squeezing the shoulders too.
  • Sam_I_Am77
    Sam_I_Am77 Posts: 2,093 Member
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    Thanks for the advice. I'll try the sqeeze the orange thing tonight.

    What's the "orange thing"?
  • SunofaBeach14
    SunofaBeach14 Posts: 4,932 Member
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    Hello everyone. So, I recently started to lift heavy and I LOVE it! Except for one small problem:

    When I do anything where the barbell is on my shoulders (squat, reverse lunge, etc.) and I am holding onto the bar, I have an incredible amount of pain in my arms. Not a "I'm working hard and it feels good" kind of pain. It feels like something is wrong, the entire arm (especially my bicep) aches like mad. What really bothers me about this that my legs, etc could be lifting a lot more weight, but my arms won't allow it. Something’s not right here.

    I do stretch before I lift. My arms are quite flexible, so I don't think it's a range of motion issue. Anyone else have this problem? Any ideas? Advice?

    Thank you so much!


    Start by not wrapping your thumb around the bar. The bar should be squeezed between the palm of your hand and your traps so no weight is on your arms.

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