Sometimes the Problem Isn’t the Exercise… It’s Your Training Schedule
One of the biggest mistakes I made during my powerlifting career had nothing to do with my technique, my effort, or even my programming volume. It was simply the order of my training days. I talked about this with Dave Tate on Dave Tate's Table Talk Podcast last year because it was one of those lessons that completely changed how I think about programming, not just for myself, but for every athlete I coach in The Crew.
Back when I was at my strongest from 2015-2017, I constantly battled tricep tendinitis in both elbows. At the time, I assumed the obvious culprit was heavy benching since that's when it hurt the most. Every heavy bench session became a battle and sometimes the pain was so intense that after only a couple working sets I physically couldn't make a fist. My hands would literally be shaking from the pain, but I was in meet prep, so I convinced myself to just push through it.
The weird part was that the pain would completely change how I benched. About halfway through the descent, the bar would almost collapse onto my chest. My legs stayed tight, my lats stayed engaged, but I couldn't maintain upper body tension because my elbows simply hurt too much. It was just an instantaneous weakness 2-3 inches off my chest. I'd still press the weight back up, but I lost so much stability and tightness at the bottom of every rep.
For years, I chased the wrong problem. It wasn't until closer to my 2k total in 2017 that I realized my bench press wasn't actually causing the tendinitis, my low bar squat was. The position required for a low bar squat places a larger amount of stress on the elbows, especially if you have limited shoulder mobility or spend long periods under heavy loads, which I did. I experimented with small adjustments first using a pinky under the bar grip, what many people call a "talon grip" these days, and that helped reduce some of the pressure on my elbows. It definitely made squatting more tolerable, but it didn't solve the real issue.
The real problem was my weekly training format. At the time, I programmed my primary squat day immediately before my primary bench day. So, I'd beat up my elbows with heavy low bar squats, wake up the next day, and ask those same inflamed elbows to stabilize a heavy bench press… No wonder every bench session felt miserable. Once I finally connected the dots, the solution was almost embarrassingly simple. I flipped my training days, so instead of squatting first, I'd hit my primary bench session after a rest day when my elbows felt fresh and then I'd squat the following day. Even if my elbows were a little sore from benching, it had very little effect on my squat performance. The opposite, however, was absolutely not true. That one scheduling change reduced my elbow pain and immediately improved the quality of my bench training.
It wasn't a new exercise, more rehab or some magical mobility drill. It was simply putting the right lift on the right day. That experience permanently changed the way I program. To this day, this is an intentional decision I make with the vast majority of my powerlifting athletes. If someone is low bar squatting and benching heavy, I'm constantly thinking about how one session will affect the next, not just what happens inside that individual workout.
Programming isn't just choosing exercises. It's managing fatigue and understanding movement interactions. It's putting your body in the best position to perform when it matters most. Looking back, I only wish I had figured it out earlier. It would have saved me a lot of pain, a lot of frustration, and probably helped me make even more progress during the strongest years of my career.
If you're dealing with nagging aches and pains, don't immediately assume the exercise itself is the problem. Sometimes the solution isn't removing a lift, sometimes it's simply moving it. If you're looking for individualized programming that takes these details into account instead of following some generic template, shoot me a message. I'm always happy to help.
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