Elbow Issues with Horizontal Pressing

I’ve been basically unable to bench press because of issues with my right elbow. I don’t really have a clue what’s going on, except that it’s not tendonitis.

When I was a baby, I had a septic elbow and surgery was done on it. For regular activity, I’ve had no issues with my elbow.

Trying to bench press, my elbow fails as soon as I lower the bar about 2 inches. It works fine from my chest up until that point. It also fails in the first 5 inches of raising my hand if I attempt a hammer-curl movement with a load.

I have no issues with it when I overhead press or barbell curl.

So I’m pretty clueless at what’s going on. I haven’t any idea what kind of tests I could use to figure this out. And because of that, I have no idea how to remedy the issue.

Any ideas?

D.Bells too, or just with the bar?

Sorry for being slow. I had to get to a gym with heavier DBs to find out, and wait for some shoulder pain to heal.

DBs actually don’t seem to cause problems with my elbow. I thought maybe it was an issue of hand rotation, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. (If so, I was considering maybe something like a swiss bar would “fix” the problem.)

I’ll give DB presses a try. That means I’ll need to get more plates for my olympic DBs in my garage gym… our office gym tops out with 50s or 55s.