Squats Causing Elbow Pain

Hey folks,
Whenever I do squats with a reasonable load, when I rack the weight, I get a sharp pain in my elbows when I extend them. At first, I thought it might be elbow tendonitis or something, but I can perform bench, dips, tricep extensions etc. fine.
Usually, after i finish squats (or GMs, or even BB Lunges), I do a few light sets on the cable pushdown, and this seems to get rid of it.

Any ideas what it is, what’s causing it or how to get rid of it?

How exactly are you racking the weight? Are you in a squat rack? Do you feel that pain throughout the day or just at the very moment?

Get the bar off your back for a week or two, and when you come back, bring your grip out a bit. In the meantime, work on shoulder flexibility.

Widen your grip

[quote]Eric Cressey wrote:
Get the bar off your back for a week or two, and when you come back, bring your grip out a bit. In the meantime, work on shoulder flexibility.

www.ericcressey.com[/quote]

I must echo my agreement. I was out of the gym for a while due to a back injury. While out I did some rotator cuff work suggested by Eric and saw an incredible improvement in my lifting, overall push/pull strength, and shoulder pain/discomfort. I would highly recommend checking out his article.

Christopher

Thanks for the replies guys. I squat in a squat rack, I rack it by leaning forward and down a bit onto the pins. There’s no pain during the squat, only immediately afterward. It goes away after a while, but a lot faster if I do some pushdowns.

I’ve used light weight and only fingertipped the bar with no pain, but I can’t use this for working weight. Maybe it’s how I hold the bar?

I’ll give myself some time off and see what happens.

Yeah, and I’ll widen the grip too.