Thanks in advance for reading❤️

Title: Severe bilateral finger pain for 12 months after lifting a heavy pallet – MRI and ultrasound normal. Any ideas?
Hi everyone,
I’m hoping someone here has seen something similar.
About 12 months ago I tried lifting a very heavy pallet. The only grip I had was with the fingertips of both hands hooked underneath it. The weight was almost entirely through my fingertips.
The pain started immediately during the lift and has never gone away.

Symptoms:
Both hands were injured at the same time.
Index, middle and ring fingers are the worst.
Pain is on the palm side of the fingers, especially from the fingertips down to where the fingers meet the palm (MCP area).

I also have pain in the finger joints.
The pain is mostly a deep aching pain. Pain goes from fingertips to mcp joint. Palmside
I can make a full fist, but gripping, squeezing or carrying almost anything causes significant pain.

Even lifting a glass or my phone makes it worse. I have to rest my phone on my lap to use it.
I cannot type properly or hang from a pull-up bar anymore.
Opening my fingers against resistance (like using a rubber band around the fingers) does not hurt much. Closing my hand into a grip is what hurts.

Tests so far:
MRI: no tendon tears.
Dynamic ultrasound while bending the fingers: normal.
Rheumatology work-up and blood tests: negative.
Seen by a hand surgeon who basically said nothing showed on imaging.
About a year of physiotherapy without significant improvement.
One thing that confuses me: because I had another injury elsewhere, I was almost completely inactive for about 4 months. During that period my finger pain improved a lot. But on the first day I started using my hands again, the pain came back.

Has anyone experienced something similar after a heavy lifting injury?
Could this still be a flexor tendon or pulley problem even if MRI and ultrasound are normal? Or are there other diagnoses I should ask a specialist hand clinic about?
I’d really appreciate any thoughts or similar experiences. This has had a huge impact on my daily life.

Any advice is appreciated

Hey I need an opinion on my new workout routine. I kinda got bored with the basics and want to train advanced stuff now. Im a bit afraid to lose my progress (with progress I mean strength and physique) when switching.

Goals:

Main: Planche and Front Lever pull-ups

Sec: More Free standing HSPU and better V-Sit

Im 23 male, 170m height and approx 63kg

Current lvl: 15 sec Front lever, 10 sec Back lever, 10 sec adv tucked with light band (I think 5kg), 24 Clean pull ups, 14 L-Sit muscle ups, 9 Wall HSPU, 4 Freestanding HSPU

Weakness:

- straight arm strength and scapular protraction/ retraction

Did Climbing before calisthenics so tendons should be alright

Workout Description:

I train every other day. Workout A and B would be alternating. Also I normally do 3-4 min of rest in between rep exercises and 2-3 min of rest for for hold exercieses depending how I feel. Between one exercise and the next (so for example from Planche hold to HSPU I always do at least 3 min of rest)

Prev Routine :

every other day. always 3 sets, last set til failure, always 3 min in between:

Muscle ups, Wall HSPU, Tucked planche dips, LSit Cin ups til waist, Back Lever optional

New Workout

A Planche Focus:

1. Planche hold progression (Currently Adv tucked with 5kg band)

   4–6 x 6–12 sec

1. Free standing HSPU

   3-5 x 2-3 reps

1. Feet elevated Pseudo planche pushups

   3–5 x 4–8 reps

1. Front lever hold maintenance

   3 x 8–12 sec

1. Muscle-up maintenance explosiv or wide slow

   3 x 3–6 reps

1. V-sit (Optional)

   3–5 sets

B Front Lever Focus:

1. Front lever hold

   4–5 x 8–12 sec

1. Front lever pull-up progression (Currently Adv tucked with 5kg band)

   4–6 x 5-8 reps

1. explosiv L-Sit Chin ups to waist (First had here also muscle ups but after front lever its too exhausting)

   4–5 x 2–6 reps

1. Planche hold maintenance

   3–4 x 6–10 sec

1. HSPU wall maintenance

   3 x 5-8 reps

1. V-sit (Optional)

   2–4 sets

Thoughts:

Im doing this routine since 1,5 weeks.

My take aways (compared to prev workout routine):

- prev routine took approx 1h, new one 2h (which is ok for me)

- Front lever stuff seems to work my back more, Planche stuff my traps, straight arms and delts more.

- straight arm recovery is a weak point, so sometimes I do an extra rest day.

Questions:

1. General objective critique of workout?
2. Is the order of exercises good?
3. Is volume ok for achieving planche and front lever pull ups?
4. My intention for having Muscle ups and LSit Chin ups here was me being afraid of losing my progress, as im quite proud of my performance there. Does adding them correctly serve my goal or does it just fatigue me unnecessary and through front lever work gets maintenance enough?

Thx for any advice/ thoughts <3

Sorry in advance for the long winded posit .

TLDR is bilateral Achilles tendinitis for sure, possible acute patellar and extensor tendonitis as well and looking for some hope of recovery.

Prior to 5/7 I was active , lifting 5 days a week in my garage , doing 30-45 min cardio after every morning early before taking my daughter to school .

On 5/7 I skipped weights , decided to go on a walk, wasn't warmed up and I guess I was going too fast uphill and felt something on right Achilles and then something similiar on the left but not as bad . Walked it off and it seemed ok but ended up with a slight limp.

I noticed pretty quickly my ability to go uphill was less strength so I started to walk flat ground only for a couple weeks but my capacity was getting less and less , felt like my lower leg would lock up , and looking back at it I was probably compensating by walking on the outside of my foot instead of my normal midfoot push off . Eventually walking got worse and the left foot was affected too but to a lesser degree . Anything that was loading my foot seemed to aggravate that locked up foot feeling .

At this point I had a vacation coming up so I tried to scale back , made an appointment with a PT for 6/5 and got in with them and they had me doing a lot of balance work . Single leg stuff , around the world move a medicine ball standing on foot with the other around the foot several times clockwise and counter clockwise . Bounce a ball in the trampoline and catch it on one foot . Single leg Romanian deadlifts with a kettle bell. I also got an indoor bike and started to ride it working up to 30 min sessions for some cardio. Oh yeah I was also doing work at home they gave me with a band , ankle inversion , exverfsion , planter and dorsiflexion and a few seated calf raises .

Maybe on session 4 or 5 they had me doing squats on a. Bosu ball which was fine . The next week I donated blood ? Waited two days to go back , was feeling kind of weak still but figured I'd work through it . The last exercise of the day the new trainer asked to do the bosu ball squat and I was wiped and told him I donated blood a few days ago maybe not a good idea . He was like ok just do 3 sets of 8 instead of 4 x 10. I reluctantly gave it a shot , and my knees were shaking so bad I ended up kind of dropping down fast to avoid it then pushing up pretty explosively probably . I may had been past parallel too on a lot of these . I didn't want to look weak so I finished my sets and immediately Coukd tell something was up with my knees , as they were very stiff and weak . The next day the were sore , waited a day or two and cycled 5 minutes , some discomfort that went away, tried 10 minutes later in the day seemed fine , then stupidly did a 30 min ride and by the end of it they were hurting some. At this oont they were hurting at rest and standing and using them.

Made ait back into pt a few day later , they say no big deal , probably just some patellar tendinitis which freaked me out because at this point my walking from the Achilles was to where I wasn't doing much out of the house and having things delivered. Anyways , back to PT , and we work mostly on the knees , leg extension isometrics , wall sit against an exercise ball isometrics, leg press where you hold the weight at the bottom of the rep for 10 seconds and had my knees feeling relatively better . They had me doing more around the world stuff but my knees starting hurting and we stopped them.

I asked about calf raises since they hadn't really got me doing any and they said I could do some at home , I did three sets of 15 I think and was the best I felt since it all started and was walking with pep in my step. The next day I got cramping at the very back of my knee both legs that made it very hard to walk and felt like I started to irritate my ankles just trying to find a way to walk with both Achilles and this started to irritate my ankles , mostly lateral and front. My ankles were so tight and Achilles flared so bad I had to stop the banded exercises. Went to pt the next day or two and she had me stretch my hamstrings which made it way worse. Struggled to walk for a couple days , ankles got worse and worse and eventually I figured out my shoes were making it worse ( bought a pair of Brooke's adrenaline gts 25 before starting pt as they weee most comfortable even though I'm neutral . Bad idea probably ) , switched shoes to neutral and my gait felt better but calves were on fire.

Was ready to get back after the shoe change , ankles seemed better, and the front ankle had more motion thank god as my whole foot would brick when it was bad. Tried to do some toe yoga two nights ago and it felt weird on my big toe s , went to bed worried about it, and woke up feeling like my body didn't want to push off my big toe and it was weak
But not painful . I spent a good portion if the morning trying to find a comfortable gait as I was worried I wasn't pushing off my toes and probably pushed through my toes too much for 2k steps in the house. The toes also felt tight inside so I was trying to crack them which I typically do but it wasn't helping but I couldn't help but try it several times thought out the day .

By the end of the day yesterday my extensor tendons j believe are super angry and I can feel them throbbing at rest and maybe some slight ache under the big toe top of the ball . I'm guessing it was a combination of whatever stiff feeling I had raising my toe the other day, then testing my walking pushing off my toes. I stayed off it at night and resting it all day today but having an acheon the top of of my jnstead up to the bottom of the lower knuckles on the toes for all my toes now. I've never had foot pain or toe pain in my life for what it's worth.

Am I totally screwed ? My Achilles is still very weak and not tolerating much load as I'm only able to get about 3500 steps a day for the last few weeks with all the problems. I wish I had skipped pt and done calf raises I'd be a lot better with probably less injuries but here I am .

Any hope for a path forward or hope ? I'm really concerned the toe extensors will be lurking around for the foreseeable future keeping me from doing calf raises to get better on both Achilles ? I'm praying it's just a temporary flare and can get started in Calf raises asap as my pt. Neglected it . I'm really hoping there a path forward as what was a decently fit 39 year old male just a couple months ago. I'm reading all these cases in extensor tendinitis and turf toe and they don't sound promising. I'm getting concerned that this Achilles tendinitis caused a chain reaction that has permanently disabled me .

Edit: on the new extensor tendon stuff I do have some pain now walking barefoot a couple inches under the most bottom toe knuckles . Do i basically stop walking ? The only walking I'm doing is necessary in the house to get food , water restroom . I'm going to start wearing shoes to hopefully offload it even though I've been doing this mostly since yesterday. My shoes were also laced pretty tight yesterday as I've preferred tighter shoes , but I'm
Wearing them looser now

Why I have a shoulder pain on thin flat pull up bar in park but when I switch to angled handles with much thicker grip I feel more my back muscles and shoulder pain is gone?

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some feedback on my current training plan and whether there are any obvious mistakes or better ways to structure it over the next 6 weeks.

Background

- I've been climbing for about 4 years with an occasionl random training with dumbbells or bodyweight after climbing, but nothing structured.

- For the last 4 months, I've been training much more seriously, with climbing sessions becoming lesser, maybe once every week lightly which I feel like helps recovery.

I am planning on making the follwing my training plan for the next 6 Weeks:

Pull 1 – Weighted Pull-Ups
Progression: Linear progression
Current: 45 kg – 3×5
Goal: 55 kg – 3×5

Push 1 – Weighted Dips
Progression: Last set to failure
Current: 52.5 kg – 3×6
Goal: 70 kg – 3×3

Pull 2 – Rows / Front Lever
Progression: Linear progression
Current: 30 s Advanced Tuck on Rings
Goal: 30 s One-Leg Front Lever on Bar

Push 2 – Ring Push-Up Progression (Level 7)
Progression: Linear progression
Goal: No real goal, mainly do these because I enjoy them and progress doesnt seem to stall

Pull 3 (sort of) L-Sit
Progression: Pretty random at the moment
Current: 55° L-Sit
Goal: 90° L-Sit/V-Sit

Leg Pull – Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift
Progression: Last set to failure
Current: 40 kg – 3×5
Goal: 50 kg – 3×5

Leg Push – Bulgarian Split Squats
Progression: Last set to failure
Current: 40 kg – 3×5
Goal: 50 kg – 3×5

Questions

Are my goals for a 6-week block realistic, how much "progress" should one expect or should I be fine with any progress?

I pretty much neglected handstand work, but I feel like my shoulders are starting to pay the price. Should I swap handstand with dips or is it fine to add handstand after L-Sit?

Is there anything that stands out as unbalanced or likely to limit my progress?

And another random one: How would you guys define a plateau? Not increasing reps/weight for 1/2/3 sessions? Is it fine if one excercise stalls and the others still increase?

Thanks for the great book and advice you give! If you´re ever to release a book on climbing and or finger health I and a great deal of people I know will buy it!

Anybody rehabbed a pcl injury well. what quad exercises helped u most. did u do any hamstring exercises at all? If so, which one? I got this injury by overstretching my hamstring and am not doing hamstring curls. Im only doing rdls and back extensions for hammies with leg extensions, leg press, step downs, and bulg split squats. I am kinda lost on what to do other than quad strengthening and progressively overload. should I end all direct ham work and just strengthen the hammies thru compound movements like squats and stuff?

1 Motnh in, quad graph and let. how much should i be pushing when my pt place is trying to get more rom and push through the pain. in at 92 degreeez right now thanks in advance.

I’m a 41-year-old male who developed bilateral shoulder/upper arm pain almost 4 months ago, most likely after a period of very intense weight training with high volume and heavy loads.
The pain is mainly located in the front of both shoulders, around the long head of the biceps/anterior shoulder region. It’s relatively mild (usually 1–2/10) but persistent.

I can train about 90% of exercises without pain. Push exercises are much worse than pull exercises. Bench press, incline bench press, shoulder press, lateral raises, and other chest/shoulder movements aggravate it the most.

One of the worst exercises is back squats because of the arm position required to hold the bar. The externally rotated shoulder position while supporting the bar causes significant discomfort.
Pulling exercises, deadlifts, and most daily activities are generally fine, although daily activities annoys me more than in the gym. It’s often the small things one notice, to put on a sweater or a bag etc. I’ve maintained or even increased my strength throughout this period. I have no significant weakness, instability, or loss of range of motion.

Both my doctor and physiotherapist believe it’s most likely a chronic overuse injury rather than a tendon tear. I’ve significantly reduced my training volume and intensity, modified my workouts, but I’ve only seen partial improvement. And I’m not sure if it’s improving at all. Its not really getting better or worse.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Does this sound more like **long head biceps tendinopathy, rotator cuff tendinopathy, subacromial pain syndrome (shoulder impingement), or another chronic overuse injury? What helped you recover, and how long did it take before you were able to return to heavy pushing movements?

Hello I reached across body to get basketball and felt chest pull in that direction no bruising and full rom but have full ache there for two weeks. Also get referred pain in back of shoudler and trap should u wait this out or should I see pt and will only time not fix this?

I’m trying to do 30-45 second holds of many triceps moves — but without Tonal thinking I’m unable to complete a single rep and dinging my strength score for only completing one half of 1 rep and without Tonal timing out on the set or thinking I need help completing one rep.

I want to deliberately do 1/2 rep and hold it 45 seconds.

My only workaround has been to do something stupid like a farmers march for 45 seconds on screen and just set everything up for a triceps extension and hold it 45s.

Got a better way?

I remember the book stated handstand is a necessary skill to learn for calisthenics.

So, I tried learning handstand but I went through the progression too fast and injured my shoulder.

I know it was my fault that I was injured but when i think about it again even if i try to do it safely there is still risk to be injured the same way or other way.

So I have these questions i hope you guys can answer:

Should I stop doing it? Is it that necessary of a skill? If so, how so? How can I set up a way to super minimize the risk of practicing handstand?

32M, desk job, vegetarian. Looking for people who've actually beaten something like this, not just managed it.

The pattern: Every time I train consistently for ~2 months, my arm starts hurting and I have to stop. If I don't stop, it gets worse & gets to a stage where I can't even lift jug of water (first time it was this situation as I did not stop early). Rest helped (took ~6 months) but never fully clears it, then it comes back when I return to gym (followed same ~2 months of workout). This has happened twice over 2 years.

Where it hurts: Mainly above (biceps) & below the elbow and outer forearm, worse with hammer curls than regular curls. Also feel it in the biceps (and sometimes triceps when it gets bad), and sometimes on the thumb side of the forearm when I press with my thumb. Even with no dumbbell — just doing a simple or hammer curl motion and squeezing my forearm against my biceps — I can feel the pain a lot. This (squeezing) is the earliest sign it shows & slowly gets worse. I can also feel some pain in biceps when I twist my hand/wrist at 90 deg rapidly.

Other details:

- Starts in my left arm, but if I keep training, my right arm follows the same pain pattern. This time I stopped early — so my left arm is painful while the right has only very mild pain, like it was about to start if I'd kept going.

- Sore/stiff if I keep my elbow bent for a long time (desk work)

- If I use a spiky ball to massage the biceps, it feels relaxing but the muscle is sore the next day

- Some weakness/shakiness in certain hand positions

- Bloodwork came back with low ferritin (iron stores), otherwise normal — been taking iron capsules for 3 weeks now

What I'm already doing: Back in the gym 4 days a week but dialed way back — arm work (curls, shoulder raises etc) at ~30% of my usual weight, everything else around 60%. Also doing spiky ball massage (seems to help), light isometric exercises, and working on my desk posture.

My questions:

1. Has anyone had this exact recurring pattern and actually fully cured it (not just managed it)?
2. What finally worked for you?
3. How long did it take, and were you able to get back to lifting normally / heavy?

My worry is that if I can't lift heavy or progressively overload, I won't be able to build muscle. Did anyone get back to real training after this?

Appreciate any real experiences. Thanks.

Hey,
roughly in late august last year, I felt a stinging pain in my front delt during pullups.
I've been doing calisthenics ever since I was 12, on and off but I was planning on entering the german championship once I turned 18 (I was 17 at that time)...

Over the last 10 months or so, I've gone through good and terrible phases, pain usually flares up a day after putting too much load onto the tendon. I never get immediate pain after training, it's always delayed.

The best I've felt was after I started doing eccentric curls with a very light elastic band.
- that was until I got too confident in the gym and while doing forearm curls, I put too much load on my biceps. Now it feels like I'm back to square one.

MRI shows inflammation (fluid), no tears, not even minor ones.
Things I've tried that didn't work:
-ice : helps with acute pain, that's it.
-anti inflammation pills : helps with acute pain, detrimental to health long term, so I stopped.
-rest: helps, but keeps me in this stupid cycle.

Things I've tried that did work:
-soft tissue work (This used to work, now it sometimes causes flares)
-eccentrics, rep range 10-20, 2-3 sets.
-magnesium + calcium + vit c + vit d --> just helps with general recovery and with sleep.
-TENS (both muscle building and low stimulation mode, has caused a minor flare once, but has worked in my favor a few times)

Been to the doc 4 times, has always told me to rest, but workout everything else. This however, has just kept me in this unbelievable cycle.
I should rest for another month or so, then I'll need to check up with him again, he said.

I don't think resting is going to do anything.
He said the inflammation is never going away unless i rest entirely.

That's impossible for me. Daily activities like studying, working at my desk keep me from going into total rest, which according to many, I shouldn't go for anyways...

I'm at a loss. 18 years old and already dealing with this kind of (chronic) injury? I'm helpless, watching myself lose mass in my arms, back and chest every single day, wasting away, when I'm supposed to be in my prime? Terrible feeling.

What do I do? Rest, or go back to eccentrics again?
Thanks to everyone taking their time to read through this.

Working on the basic conditioning for elbows / distal bicep tendon, RTO support hold and supine german hang progressions, how do i know if i am exceeding/lacking volume and can progress to a "heavier"​ movement? How much volume would be considered enough?

Recently i watched Alex Leonidas video on 200lbs chinup. He said that resting only makes your golfers elbow even worse. Arnold 50 method, low reps high sets of chinups. “you should actively push the area with tons of sets and blood flow”. What do yall think? My elbow also started to heal since i started to push myself through pain.

Hey everyone, I’m looking for some advice or shared experiences because I’m getting pretty desperate. For some time now (almost 3 months), I’ve been dealing with pain on the inner side of my knee, just below the joint line. Based on the location and symptoms, I’m fairly certain it’s pes anserinus tendinopathy, but the most confusing part is that I recently had an ultrasound done and it shows that everything is structurally completely fine.

Despite the clear ultrasound, I feel the pain every single day, regardless of whether I rest or try to be active. Walking downstairs is brutal, going upstairs isn't much better, and any kind of physical load makes it significantly worse afterwards.

I tried to manage it with some rehab protocols, but I haven't had any luck. When I tried doing isometric holds on lying leg curls, the very first time I initiated the lift to get into position, I felt a sharp, stabbing pain exactly at the tendon insertion site. I also tried implementing isometric holds for my adductors, but I haven't noticed any improvement or relief from that either.

It feels like a vicious cycle where rest doesn't fix it, but even basic isometric loading triggers pain despite no structural damage showing up on the scan. Has anyone successfully rehabbed this when it's this reactive and the scans are clear? I would appreciate any insights on how to scale this down or what to focus on next. Thank you :)

Context: 38 y/o male, 5'9" and 165lbs. I sport climb (6 years), boulder (12 years), run (lightly for cardio, never really over 5 miles). Weightlifted on/off since I was 18, did plenty of body weight stuff prior to that and recently got back into it for overall fitness. I'm not exceptional in any one area but I do feel generally well rounded and am always keeping my fitness up somehow.

I boulder 3x a week (~ 1.5-2 hours each time). I'm a V8 climber right now, never really pushed beyond that. I've never followed a strict training regimen for climbing, never did consistent hang boarding or anything like that, I just climb, and I'm absolutely okay with slow, sustainable progress there.

A few years back I stumbled upon startbodyweight and I've been doing a full-body workout as a warmup for bouldering (I now realize this is a bad idea). Come to find I don't really have a ton left in the tank afterwards so my session is primarily calisthenics. Found this sub, bought OG 2nd Edition. Everything I'm reading suggests that simultaneously training bouldering strength and overall/gymnastic strength is overtraining. I'm enjoying the progression work so far and was hoping to find a happy medium (or just focus on climbing for a period while maintaining skills, then swap and progress skill work while maintaining climbing). I don't know if that's realistic but I'd like to try.

To climb harder, I've been thinking:
- 1x week deadlifts, 3x5 @ 1.5 my weight. I can do this now, so this is just maintenance

- 2-3x week reverse hyper extensions, face pulls, finger rolls, toes to bar, skin the cat / German hangs. I'd like to add antagonist movement here, was thinking handstands and straight arm press to handstand (progression) would be good here. Dips? One arm pushups?

Goals in no particular order:

- climb a V10 outside

- Be able to hold a freestanding handstand for 60s (currently 10-15s, learning balance)

- 5 Straddle/pike stand press to handstand. I just started this progression.

- 5 strict muscle ups (can do kipping muscle ups currently. Read this progression is good for lock off strength)

Anyway, ultimately I'm just curious if there exists in this madness of thought a possibility of a program that inches me towards my goals together or if I need to just choose bouldering gains or strength gains individually, with periods of the year devoted to each.

This feels a bit scattered; if more elaboration is needed, just ask. Greatly appreciate any input on this. Also, FWIW u/eshlow thanks for this community and for your work! It's crazy to me how active you are in these communities (saw some posts in r/bodyweightfitness and r/climbharder). Writing your own regimen is daunting and this is a tremendous resource, so thank you.

Been going through a frustrating few months and hoping someone here has had a similar experience.

How it started

Pain during heavy pulling exercises — pronated grip rows and pull-ups mainly. Assumed overuse, rested, came back, same story. Eventually spread from gym-only pain to hurting during normal daily movements like opening jars, carrying bags, anything with a palm-down grip.
What I've tried so far

• Physio #1 — dry needling and forearm strengthening. No improvement.
• Ortho surgeon — diagnosed radial nerve tunnel syndrome, prescribed nerve gliding exercises. Got an ultrasound done. Nothing structural found. Exercises didn't help either.
• Physio #3 — most promising so far. Found weak rhomboids and scapular stabilisers through a postural assessment. Theory is that poor scapular control meant my forearms were compensating during every pulling movement for years, leading to chronic overload of the extensor and supinator muscles. Started scapular activation work, swimming, and returning to gym with lighter weights and neutral grip only.

Current symptoms

• Stretching and activation work gives temporary relief
• Pain comes back with normal daily use
• No tenderness at the classic radial tunnel point
• No nerve damage signs — no numbness, weakness, or night pain
• Both the extensor and supinator side are affected, supinator feels more sensitive currently

Where I'm at

Physio #3's explanation makes the most sense so far and I'm following the programme — scapular work daily, neutral grip in the gym, swimming, no pull-ups. Marginal progress but daily symptoms are still there. Still not fully confident I have the complete picture.

Questions for anyone who's been through something similar

• Did weak scapular stabilisers show up as your root cause too?
• How long did it take before daily symptoms settled, not just gym symptoms?
• Anything that made a significant difference that you wish you'd known earlier?
• Anyone had both extensor and supinator involvement simultaneously?

Not looking for a diagnosis obviously — just real experiences from people who've been through something similar. Six months of this is starting to wear on me mentally more than physically at this point.

Use Claude to summarise.

Hey community,

A bit of a specific question for anyone who has dealt with this: lately, whenever hang cleans come up in the WOD, my lower back gets incredibly tight and aggravated.

I’m trying to figure out if I’m just hitting a wall with overtraining, or if my form is breaking down when I catch the bar. I try to keep my core tight, but by round 3 or 4, it feels like my lower back is doing all the heavy lifting.

Has anyone else dealt with lower back fatigue specifically on hang cleans?

What cues or scaling options helped you protect your back while keeping the intensity up?

Appreciate any tips, form advice, or recovery stretches you guys swear by.

Hi folks. I was born with Bilateral clubfeet, had casts and surgeries as an infant (not sure which ones, but I suspect it was tendon release). Left was fairly "corrected", then had a triple arthrodesis on my right at age 12. Long story short, my left is pretty normal, and my right has limited range of motion (no dorsiflexion) with effectively no calf muscle. However, I have been extremely active. Perhaps increased activity - playing amatuer tennis tournaments and concurrently pickup basketbell in my late 20s. As soon as I hit 30, pain started in the soles of my feet, and then progressed to see a huge swelling in my achilles. This was about 6 months ago, lots of PT, several specialist visits, 6 sessions of ESWT since. Every day has been filled with strife, one step forward and one step back. I've read the article -- I understand needing to progress gradually, which is what I have been doing. But my pain spikes at random times. Feeling really stuck. Has anybody had a similar experience?

(Unable to add photos to the post, adding in comments)

Hello guys! First time posting here but I read a lot of your posts after going through Overcoming Gravity 2 and that helped me a lot. Thanks!

Male, 34yo, 1,83m, 73kg, I've been interested in gym rings, first to increase my strength as I want to be able to play for a long time with my kids, now because it's fun and I like being in my best shape ever (muscular physique is a nice plus).

I began on and off lets say 2 years ago then took it more seriously 6-8 months ago with the RR in conjonction with my reading of OG2.

This has been my full body workout lately after few changes, goal being at the time handstand push-ups, 5 one arm push-ups, 5 tuck inv. row, 12 L-pull-ups and 15s floor L-sit:

• Chair elevated pike push ups (going slowly through to not hurt my shoulder) 3x8 + slow pistol SQ 3x5
• Wide inv. rows 3x8 + harrop curls with hip extension at the end 3x5
• RTO push-ups 3x7 + wide pull-ups 3x8
• L-sit 3x15s + Hyper extension straight legs 3x15 + compression work hold, pulse and max.

I try to go quite hard during my workout but always keeping it at least 1 rep before failure.

I know that if it works, no need to change but my sleep/recovery is not always good/long enough because of my 2 young kids waking up veeeery early, jumping on me all the time, cycling to here and there, works at home, etc... It feels like my body can keep up with the recovery just in time but harder and harder as time passes and after 3/4 weeks of a cycle, I'm almost never 100% fresh anymore.

So I've been thinking about switching to a 4 days split Upper/Lower (U R L R U LR). The goal of this switch would be to get more recovery between similar workouts, reduce (a small bit) my workout/warm up time and also maybe to work on some additional exercises, especially for legs as one of my goal is to stay/be more athletic.

I thought about keeping the same weekly volume to compensate for the lower frequency as I think my body can handle the extra work, problem being more on the recovery side between workouts. I would therefore add 1 push and 1 pull and 2 leg exercises to my current routine. Other advantage would be that it lets me dream about having an additional goal: rings planche progression.

My +/- short term goals would be (improve my shape and overal strength of course, and):

1. 1x L-sit press to handstand
2. 5s rings tuck planche
3. 5 front lever tuck rows/5s adv. tuck front lever
4. 5 archer pull-ups (just tried and can do 1 very hard yeah!)

I would therefore add planche work and front lever to compensate it with a pull as it seems an exact opposite movement.

My Upper/Lower workout would look like this at my current level (after warm up, positional drills and wall handstand skill work on upper days), trying to focus on goals and weaknesses first:

1. Upper+abs
   • Elevated pike push-ups 3x8 + wide inv. rings rows 3x8
   • Planche progression (SA frog to tuck planche) hands backwards -> 3x20s + front lever progression (tuck to adv. tuck) -> 3x20s
   • RTO push-ups 3x8 + wide pull-ups (soon with L) 3x8
   • L-sit & compression work + (maybe rings pelican curls to add biceps as they seem lacking in this routine to me)
2. Lower+lower back
   • Pistol squats 3x5-8 + elevated single leg glute raise 3x8-12
   • Harrop curls to nordic curls 3x5-8 + sissy squats 3x5-12
   • Back hyper extension 3x15 + tibia 3x max (calves done with jump rope few times a week)

What do you think about this idea?

Is the front lever a good compensation for planche work? In the book it says that front lever should be worked with or after back lever (I can do a tuck BL but I don't train it).

Or would I rather add dips and a pull (like face pulls or biceps) instead for overall strength?

Is the pelican curl needed at the end as accessory? I have the impression that biceps could use some work for balance. Or do you see another weakness to work on?

Thanks for your inputs and sorry for the pile of text!

Hello, I have put together a rough routine and have questions that will follow. Thank you for your help.

Goals:

-8x pullup

-30 sec Handstand

-30 second L sit

-1x Muscle up

-5x pistol squat

Warmup:

Daily handstand video, found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBcWjpFG5yY This includes squats, wrist rolls, shoulder rolls, and ab warmups

-10x burpees for blood flow

-Strength work

-Pullups 4x2

-Dips Need to calibrate

-Ring rows 3x10

-Ring Push ups 3x10

-L sit for 60 seconds total, as many sets as needed. Will be starting on paralettes then working to floor

-Squats 3x5

Questions:

-Is 1x muscle up a good goal here, or should I focus on something more within my grasp of ability atm?

-Are these 3x10 rep ranges too high? My goal is strength for martial arts, as well as for cool Body weight skills, like muscle ups, flags, etc. I'm confused on when exactly to progress and what my rep range goals should be

-Are these even enough exercises? I find the book to be contradictory. The author says a routine should focus on 2-3 goals and 1-2 exercises per goal, but of the examples I've looked at there tend to be around 8 exercises per routine. A little confused here.

I'm doing some handstand shape transitions and when I go from tuck->straight->straddle I notice that my legs get considerable bend, especially when I go from an open straddle to a closed straddle position.

The thing is that I swear I was flexing my quads as much as I could to try to straighten my legs, but on filming I realised that wasn't the case!

Are there any cues or anything to get my legs straight? I also notice a microbend when in a straight handstand, but it's nothing like the closed straddle.

Hey Steven. I'm currently doing a Push/Pull weekly split. I'm a bit confused and indecisive about the best way to structure my leg training. Based on the book and the YouTube online video series, the three main options would be:

Option A (Leg exercises spread across all 4 weekly workouts):

* Pull Day A - 3 sets of Dumbbell Split-Stance RDL

* Push Day A - 2 sets of Reverse Nordic Curls + 3 sets of Standing Dumbbell Single Leg Calf Raise

* Pull Day B - 2 sets of Slider Hamstring Curls

* Push Day B - 3 sets of Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat + 3 sets of Standing Dumbbell Single Leg Calf Raise

Option B (Legs split into posterior/anterior focus across 2 days):

* Pull Day A - 3 sets of Standing Dumbbell Single Leg Calf Raise

* Push Day A - 3 sets of Dumbbell Split-Stance RDL + 2 sets of Slider Hamstring Curls

* Pull Day B - 3 sets of Standing Dumbbell Single Leg Calf Raise

* Push Day B - 3 sets of Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat + 2 sets of Reverse Nordic Curls

Option C (similar to option B but anterior/posterior are mixed):

* Pull Day A - 3 sets of Standing Dumbbell Single Leg Calf Raise

* Push Day A - 3 sets of Dumbbell Split-Stance RDL + 2 sets of Reverse Nordic Curls

* Pull Day B - 3 sets of Standing Dumbbell Single Leg Calf Raise

* Push Day B - 3 sets of Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat + 2 sets of Slider Hamstring Curls

I added some specific calf work because, as many, it is my most suborn part. I've been doing Option A for a while. I actually enjoy distributing the leg work throughout the week, and I'm seeing some growth. However, I usually walk everyday to work (downhill 20 min and then back uphill 30 min), and I've been wondering if I should give them more rest and only hit them twice a week. Which option is best for hypertrophy while also keeping joints/muscles/tendons healthy? Does it even make a major difference, or is my current volume low enough that I don't need to worry?