r/overcominggravity

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.

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 everyone, looking for some advice from anyone who has successfully managed to fix their anterior pelvic tilt (APT) through bodyweight training.basically, i have a severe desk job slouch, and my pelvis is completely dumped forward. whenever i try to do regular bodyweight squats, lunges, or even planks, my lower back instantly takes over. my quads get totally fried, but my glutes and lower abs feel completely dead. it’s like my nervous system forgot how to fire them up.because of this biomechanical mess, standing for a long time gives me this annoying lower back tightness, and visually, my lower stomach sticks out even though my body fat is low.i've realized that just doing random stretching isn't doing anything because the moment i stand up, the tightness comes back.for those who overcame this, did you have to aggressively isolate the activation phase before doing compound movements? not looking for a quick fix, just want to make sure my logic makes sense from a movement perspective. thanks.

No prior accident, only weighlifting in the weight I've been doing for weeks. Haven't gone to the doctor yet, and the mild pain only happens when I hold my arm forward with weight. Otherwise I have a complete mobility with my arm and shoulder. I did rehab workouts in the gym earlier, deloaded to 30-40% of my usual, and I felt no pain aside from dull discomfort when doing lat pulldowns.

Should I continue rehab works and gradually increasing weight as long as it's painless?

Edit: Pain is on top if my shoulder.

I have a mild strain on my forearm I can't seem to get healed 100%. I would hate to go to rehab for it, as it's mild, and they will drag out the therapy for weeks and weeks to get their $$$. I notice it most when brushing teeth or shaving ( elbow very bent with repetitious movements). I've laid off weights until I get it healed. I don't think its a bicep strain, even though its near the same area. I've had that before and healed it pretty easily. I'm doing rehab exercises for that too just in case.

Here's what I've been trying so far:
stretching
straight arm down at my side, rotating with a band
twisting dumbbell bicep curls
standing on band, arm at side bending wrist up
muscle scraping
holding a hammer out in front of me, forward backward side to side stretches
vibration and red light sleeve

None of it these activities hurts, its just not healing. Anybody have a rehab plan or advice? Thanks a lot!

I have pain in my middle finger bottom knuckle which seems to be aggravated by gaming, and by extended mouse/trackpad usage. I think it's tendinopathy in my finger extensor, but I am not exactly sure about what it is, and not sure what exercises to do to help it recover. Some details:

- It is normally not painful at rest, but starts hurting half an hour to an hour (varies) into activity. It usually cools down quite quickly after activity. The pain is not very severe, but consistently cuts activity short as I am afraid to use my hand through the pain.

- The specific games this issue is from is with tetris and a keyboard rhythm game. Tetris involves arrow keys using my index, middle and ring fingers, while the rhythm game involves thumb to ring fingers, and I estimate roughly up to 10 keys are pressed a second by my right hand.

- I think this originated roughly 3 years ago for maybe around 2 weeks at most. I basically didn't use my hands for anything that would cause this pain until a year and a half ago, where I played through pain for maybe around 2 months (during this period, the pain was sometimes constant). Since then, I've played sporadically, but each time the pain comes up.

- I think this has something to do with the ring finger, as the pain originally seemed to be somewhere in between the middle and ring knuckles, and doesn't seem to come when I am using only index and middle fingers. Trilling middle and ring fingers may be a cause, though I haven't tested to see if only doing that motion would cause pain.

- For mouse/trackpad use, I think there's probably some habitual tension causing the pain, though I'm not even sure if its the same issue.

- The knuckle seems to be redder than the other hand's one always, not sure if I'm just imagining it due to putting too much focus on it.

- I have had tendon issues in thumbs/wrists/elbows, but have mostly resolved these through doing high rep exercises and managing load.

For what exercises I've tried, I've been doing something where I rest my palm on a table with fingers straightened and off the table, and placing my other hand on the straightened fingers as weight, and holding. I tried using the 5 finger rubber bands but they seemed like they didn't provide much resistance. I've also very recently started doing some rice bucket exercises, with particular focus on exercises that involve opening my hands against the rice.

What could this issue be and are there better exercises I could be doing for it?

A couple months ago while benching, the back of my left elbow where the tricep meets started feeling shaky like it might give out. It didn’t, but it felt super weird and slightly uncomfortable. The same thing happened on shoulder press and tricep extensions. It’s continued even after lowering the weight, and now it also happens when I’m sitting and push myself up.

It’s not super painful, it’s more just the feeling it’s going to give out or soemthing. I’ve looked into tricep tendinopathy but most make it sound like just raw pain.

Has anyone experienced this or have insight into what it could be and what to do? Thanks

First of all, hello. I'm using Google Translate because my English isn't very good.

I've had chronic tendon problems with lateral epicondylitis for 3 years; it's really painful and I can't use my arms. This problem exists in both arms. 


MRI revealed tendon thickening and nerve tenderness.

I'm going to university this year and I'll need to use my arm a lot. What should I do? Can you help me? Thank you.

Recently, I went to the doctor and had an ultrasound done on my elbow area. The exam showed a “mild triceps tendinopathy” and “thickening and hypoechogenicity of the ulnar nerve within the cubital tunnel, with a cross-sectional area measuring 0.15 cm².”
Until then, I only went to the doctor because of a mild pain I felt while training. The next day, it seemed a bit more noticeable during supination movements, so I went to get checked and stopped all training immediately. I am now waiting to start physiotherapy and gradually return to training.
It has been about 2 weeks since the onset of the pain and the findings. For now, I’m fine — I don’t feel nerve shocks or anything like the more alarming symptoms I’ve seen in online reports, such as loss of movement or severe issues. I’m sharing this here because even though I don’t feel anything serious or significant pain, I’m still afraid — afraid that this might never fully resolve or that something worse could happen.
Recently, I performed some isometric movements, for example during sex, which did not worsen my condition. I still train legs and sometimes lift plates to put on machines, but I don’t feel any symptoms. I’ve been avoiding any upper-body training so far.
The doctor who performed the ultrasound said this was due to overuse and that I simply need to take some time off and then gradually return very lightly. The general practitioner also recommended 10 physiotherapy sessions. In short, I’m feeling afraid.

Hello Steve!

I really need an advice because I'm kinda stuck with my issue for about of 9 months already.

Pain map.

Background:

38F, road cyclist, fit. September 2025 started to feel weirdness with my right leg which presented as lower wattages, shin during the ride and a foot stiffness and light pain in the morning. Rest didn't help. After one long ride (zone 2, nothing difficult) where I spent a lot of time in the aero position because of the wind, the next day I woke up with the terrible glute pain in the middle of the butt cheek.

Fast forward to November, after several sessions of shock wave and dry needling the pain was still there.

I did 2 MRIs:

Lower Back MRI:

Initially came totally clear. Asked to have another look. Radiologist updated with minimal annular L5/S1 disk tear. So minimal, that they didn't even notice it. But ok. I did transformational targeted S1 nerve block to rule out the disk (lidocaine + steroid). The block did nothing with my pain even for 1h. I also never ever had a back pain.

Hip MRI:

No issues except labral tear. No tendon problems, inflammation, nothing. By that time I developed light pain in the groin too. I did cortisone injection which gave me mixed results. I could move a bit better, sit better but no dramatic change.

Fast forward to March

The groin pain progressed, the pain in glute remained despite I tried to strengthen glutes, did another round of shockwave. Was redirected to hip preservation specialist who found CAM impingment. This time we did only lidocaine injection to the joint. It helped with pain in the glute but not 100%. But there was a clear improvement in movements.

So, given that there were no other issues discovered, I did hip arthroscopy. Initially first 6 weeks after the surgery the glute pain was 10 times worse. It was just terrible. I had to take a lot of medication.

Today, I'm 13 weeks post op

My ROM is perfect and the surgeon tells that the joint is fine. I don't have pain in the groin anymore which is a success. But the glute pain is still with me. I should say it's better than right after the surgery though. I'm doing again strengthening and I'm progressing however very slow. Focusing on gluteus medius because it's noticeably weaker than on the other side.

Stretching never worked for me, dry needling, electric accupuncture and muscle relaxers give temporary relief, lacrosse ball aggravates it as well as deep muscle release massage. Osteopath didn't help either.

At this point I think I've tried everything and fixed mechanical issues I had but the stubborn pain is still with me. The only thing I haven't tried is Piriformis steroid injections but I'm hesitant because I've read that it can harm tendons. And I'm actually not 100% sure my tendons are good even there were no signs on MRI. Also I've heard about Botox into Piriformis but I'm scary to do it too. What if it will create more problems.

I attended 3 physical therapists and 2 of them think there is a tendon involved but the area where I have pain is very crowded. It's basically the junction of gluteal tendons, sit bone, sciatic nerve, muscles. Different tests were negative including low back tests. Except maybe those which provoke Piriformis pain like figure 4, bending or bringing knee to chest.

Please advice me if anything else I can do besides exercises. Should I just give it a time?

Thank you.

I basically hip checked a log at low speed in a minor mountain bike crash.

I had to bike out of the area because I was a few miles from the car and I felt mostly OK but I have pain when pushing out of deeper flexed hip positions. When finishing my ride, this was at times like standing to pedal hard on a steeper section.

Around the house it has been more like say a deep squat, especially if the feet are offset in a way that increases the hip flexion. I have kids so I'm constantly like leaning over to pick them up or stop them from getting hurt and it grabs me. Normal walking and stuff like that is totally normal.

I assume this is because my femur and/or hip and surrounding tissues are bruised and mildly swollen. Is there a more serious injury I should be worried about with these symptoms? I haven't been doing total rest but I've been trying to avoid things which hurt.