Deformed, no daylight till Sunday

Since I realized I have poor ROM in my left elbow the other day I have been asking a bunch of people to do the elbow test.  Simply try to touch the your right shoulder with your right hand and vice versa.  When I try to do this with my left arm something in my left elbow throws up a road block.

I am curious how long this lack of mobility has been the case.  Is it some thing I only developed as another symptom of old age recently or has it been this way all my life?  I can’t recall ever trying to this simple movement prior to this past Wednesday.

Regardless of how or when this came to be it explains some issues I have doing certain things, the most recent example is a muscle up.  As you are going through the transition portion of a muscle up your elbows normally will need to be fully retracted.  Since my left elbow does not bend as much as the right it throws the whole movement out of balance.  If you watch my reps slowly you will see my right arm gets into the proper position while the left side drags behind, causing the movement to get all sorts of messy.

I am not sure how successful I can be restoring full flexion to my left arm.  For now I am just going to try to pull my wrist towards my shoulder as part of my stretching routines to see if I can break down whatever adhesions are holding it back.

The next 48 hours for me are going to be quite filled.  I have to work late tonight at the office, go home to pack up the truck for a race tomorrow, time the race tomorrow morning and then head directly back to the office to continue working.  It is going to be a whole lot of suck.