Bendy Elbows
“Normal people” will look at this email and think it’s dryer than a Ryvita left undressed. But to people like you and I (geeks that possess superior intellect) the dryness will be mopped up by our excessive saliva, as we drool over the mind-expanding anatomical marvel that is, our ELBOWS.
The elbow is made up of three bones; the long arm bone called the humerus, and two forearm bones called radius and ulna. All three come together to form a ‘complex hinge joint’. Complex, because three’s a crowd? No, “complex” because in addition to flexion and extension (the usual movement suspects for a hinge joint), the forearm also allows you to pronate and supinate your hand (i.e. wave like the Queen).
1. Hyperextended Elbows
The elbow joint requires stability to function well and pain-free. We can increase stability around the elbow by making sure the biceps and triceps are strong and being used equally.
This is where yoga is problematic, the practice is a push dominant activity and so the elbows tend to be strong in the direction of tricep extension, but weak in the biceps because we rarely lift things heavier than a yoga mat. This means the joint has a lot of extension strength, but little antagonist muscle tone to resist hyperextension and provide joint stability.
But elbow stability is not only developed by the muscles that have direct contact with the joint. Much of the elbow’s ability to be stable comes from the shoulder. Two common imbalances are Serrates anterior/pec minor and the external rotators/internal rotators.
Allow me to elaborate….
a. Serratus Anterior is the most important shoulder stability muscle for the scapula. It helps keep the shoulder blade flat to the ribs. When it’s not firing the medial border of the scapula will pop up forming enough space for you to smuggle class A drugs across the border.
On the other side of the fence the pec minor, which attaches onto the coracoid process, is selfishly pulling the scapula forwards (if this isn’t making sense email me and I’ll make you a video). The combo of weak serratus and a tight pec minor makes it very hard to keep your scapular stable and in a good position.
b. The top of the humerus in many people doesn’t lie neatly in the middle of the socket as intended. Due to muscle imbalances, the head of the humerus lies forward in the socket, due to the excessive strength of the internal rotators pulling the head of the humerus. Commonly the external rotators are on holiday, sitting under a palm tree sipping cocktails.
Both of these forces contribute to the elbow joint becoming excessively mobile. As stability is lost the ligaments are put under huge strain and often overstretch.
Remember, ligaments don’t recoil. So once they’ve lost their tension the joint will be compromised.
2. Carrying Angle
All of us have a forearm deviation, where the forearm doesn’t lie directly straight underneath the humerus. The reason for this is it helps our arm clear the body as the arm swings during walking. This deviation is known as a carrying angle. However for some people this deviation is much bigger which means their arm position needs to be adapted when they are doing yoga.
In weight bearing poses the person may experience a lot of pain in their wrists, elbows and shoulders and visibly the elbows will either appear unstable and hyperextended or perpetually bent no matter how hard they try to straighten out.
Elbow Solutions
Yoga teachers will often see this happening in their students and rightly prescribe a micro bend to visually solve the problem.
But this is merely a bandaid. To keep elbows safe we should teach students to strengthen their stability muscles (see my Instagram page for ideas or my previous elbow blog post), and we should also encourage people to take up lifting and pulling exercises.
In addition, bodywork and stretching need to be focused on the tight bits, such as the pesky pecs, so they don’t play tough-of-war on the opposing weak bits.
To support those with a carrying angel a couple of simple strategies can be useful: 1. Allow them to turn their hands out, instead of having them face forward. And 2. Allow them to have their hands wider than shoulder-width to accommodate the deviation. They also need to work on their stability, as mentioned above.
Now, mop up your saliva, you drooling anatomy geek. As always, thank you for reading my blogs, watching my videos, and for all of your support.
Until next time,
Celest