 Let's discuss having elbow pain when you're trying to squat. So the people of you out there who are very able-bodied probably can't really comprehend this. This video might not be for you. It's okay not to watch. The principle here is when somebody's really stiff, especially in their upper body and their shoulders, they have trouble bringing their hands back like this, like in a high five position. They might have a lot of trouble trying to throw a baseball or a tennis ball, something like that, right? Because they don't have this motion backwards, we call this external rotation of the shoulder. And you need that motion when you're squatting as well. So if I grab a bar and I walk under it, I need to be able to bring my hands back so that I can set the bar on my traps, right? Especially if I want to do some sort of low bar squatting, I can really crank my elbows back that way. It puts a lot of stress on the shoulder. Maybe the low bar, high bar discussion is not for today. I've made a video on that already. Feel free to look it up. I'll try to leave it in the description below if I can remember. Basically the low bar cranking your shoulders, you might not need to be doing that. Why are you squatting? You might not need to low bar squat. Especially if you're having shoulder trouble, okay? So maybe avoid it. Big thing that we need to talk about next. I've talked about shoulder mobility for squatting, right? For your barbell back squats before. And again, I'm going to try to leave a link below, hopefully I come through. What's happening here is usually the upper back is too flat. The chest is too far up. So when I stick my chest up like this, I lose my ability to bring my shoulders back, okay? And so the thing that is then trying to bring my hands back so that I can hold on the bar is actually my spine. My spine is moving to give me the mobility that I'm looking for for my squat instead of my shoulder. But I'm still cranking on the shoulder. It's just limited based on its position. It's gone as far as it can go. So instead, if you need more mobility in your shoulder to not crank on your elbow so much, right? As I pull my hands back like this, if the shoulder doesn't keep rotating, then maybe the elbow can go to get me that mobility so my hand can grab the bar. Hopefully that makes sense to everyone. I'm going to go through it again, just turned to face this wall now. As I'm holding the bar and I bring my shoulder, I rotate my shoulder backwards, this external rotation, if it stops and I can't go far enough, I can keep the upper arm where it's at but I can get extra motion out of the elbow, okay? So if I have extra mobility in the elbow, that pressure can be very uncomfortable. It can cause different sorts of epicondylitis or locus or elbow pain, right? So the fix here generally, not all the time, is one, go see your physical therapist and get your stuff taken care of. But two, sometimes just a couple mobility drills can help out. You need to clear up the shoulder before you can blame the elbow for hurting, right? The elbow usually is hurting because the shoulder isn't cooperating. It's not helping out as much as it's supposed to be. And why is the shoulder not helping out? Well, it's not the shoulder's fault. It's that cue that you got to keep your chest up, okay? So keeping my chest up then limits my shoulder mobility so find a way instead to not overcrank yourself into this extended position, this flat back position. Keep something, maybe exhale a little bit. Maybe keep something with a little less end range, right? Maybe something a little bit more in the middle. Now if you squat that way, after squatting like this all your life, you are going to be weaker and you're going to feel unsteady and unstable. But that's okay. You are more unsteady and unstable and you need to be because your shoulder is making your elbow hurt, okay? We need to remove stability from this or rigidity, maybe is a better word, from this shoulder so that we can get into positions that are comfortable. Sometimes just moving your elbows out or your hands out too can take some of that stress off the shoulder and then you don't have to follow all my weird advice that I firmly believe in. You can just ignore that part, scoot your hands out and maybe your elbow doesn't hurt and you can keep cranking your back up and your chest up because you think your chest is caving because it's not up enough, but it's not really doing that. It's because your hips are coming under, your back is too flat and you don't have your hamstrings driving you out, but you should watch my buttwink video, fixing buttwink video if you don't believe me. Those are just some thoughts. Shoulder mobility for elbow health when squatting.