What would you do? (Persistent elbow pain)

[Assle]

About a month ago, I fell off my bike at speed and landed on the pavement palms-first.

Gave the body a little over a week to heal and then went to address any remaining pain with a relatively-large local medical group (Illinois Bone & Joint Institute). At the time, I felt a constant numb pain in my right elbow that hurt especially bad when I flexed. They took x-rays from 3 angles, then the doctor saw me for 4-5 minutes and he told me everything was fine and that I could continue to work out with heavy weights so long as it doesn't hurt.

Went back to the gym and doing any sort of extended physical movement with my arm brings back the numb pain in my right elbow area.... and doing seated tricep extensions hurts REAL bad. to the point that I can't do more than 2 reps at even a moderate weight. Skullcrushers and pulldowns I can do without much pain, though I definitely feel the throbbing sensation in the right elbow area.

So do I:
a) Just do whatever exercises I can so long as it doesn't hurt.
b) Avoid as much upper body exercises to put minimum strain on the arms for another month or so and then try again, hoping that is enough time for the healing process to be complete.
c) Go see another doctor for a second opinion and get an MRI done.
d) Some other option? Icy Hot/Tiger Balm after every gym session perhaps?

[spoolin215]

You should probably stop doing bull**** exercises like seated tricep extensions and skull crushers anyway. Single joint movements can be extremely hard on the joints and connective tissue. You definitely shouldn't be doing them when recovering from an injury.

You just need to rest it more. Are you icing it frequently? If not you should be.

If you severely bruised/strained the tissue in and around the elbow 4 weeks is not really that much recovery time, especially if you're still putting tons of stress on it via isolation exercises.

[Egilbe]

You should probably stop doing bull**** exercises like seated tricep extensions and skull crushers anyway. Single joint movements can be extremely hard on the joints and connective tissue. You definitely shouldn't be doing them when recovering from an injury.

You just need to rest it more. Are you icing it frequently? If not you should be.

If you severely bruised/strained the tissue in and around the elbow 4 weeks is not really that much recovery time, especially if you're still putting tons of stress on it via isolation exercises.

x2

Bones usually take 6 weeks to heal when they break. You think you can damage a joint/bone/ligaments and expect them to heal in a week?

[Assle]

If you severely bruised/strained the tissue in and around the elbow 4 weeks is not really that much recovery time, especially if you're still putting tons of stress on it via isolation exercises.

So would you say to just avoid all exercises that involve considerable elbow movement, including compounds like bench and dips for another 4 weeks? Still OK to do cable crossovers, standing fly, etc. kind of exercises where the elbow joint doesn't move as much?

I don't mean to come off as impatient or needing specific time tables, I just really dislike injury keeping me from giving my all.

x2

Bones usually take 6 weeks to heal when they break. You think you can damage a joint/bone/ligaments and expect them to heal in a week?

Allow me to clarify. The injury occurred a little over a month ago. For the first week or so after the injury, I let the initial external damage (torn up palm skin and visible bruising) heal so that I could then see what still hurt. From my experience with prior injuries of this nature, it takes about a week for the bruising to die down and soreness to mostly go away. So today, April 22nd of 2012, nearly 5 weeks after the injury, the pain is still there.

Granted, the last time I had an injury like this was about a decade ago in my late teens/early 20s and I am now probably 30-40 pounds heavier so there was very likely more damage this time than 10 years ago. I just want to take the right approach to healing up and getting back to full steam ahead in the gym.