How to Workout With an Elbow Injury

Injuring your elbow isn’t extremely common, though it does happen. This type of injury 
makes it hard to do much of anything because every movement of your arm uses your 
elbow. Here are some ways you can exercise if you have an elbow injury.

Use an Exercise Bike

The first thing you can do is use the stationary exercise bike at your gym or if you have 
one at home. This doesn’t require you to grip onto handlebars like a regular bicycle and 
can even be done with no arm movement at all. Use a stationary bike that sits upright 
so you aren’t leaning forward and having to hold onto the handlebars for balance. Using 
a stationary bike without holding onto anything requires your legs and abs to do more 
work, so it is an even better workout for you.

Try Walking or Jogging

A simple way to get more cardio in if your elbow is in pain is to walk or jog. You just 
need to be careful of how much you move your arms while walking. Some people swing 
their arms a lot to build up momentum and because it helps burn more calories, but you 
need to avoid this if you have an elbow injury. A slower pace will allow your arms to not 
move around and bend quite so much. You can also try putting that arm in a brace to 
force it in position when you are working on these types of cardio workouts.

Focus on Low-Impact Aerobics

It is going to be hard to do weight training and circuit training with an injured elbow, but 
that doesn’t mean you can’t burn calories and get fit. Low-impact aerobics are great 
because they are easy on your body and you can modify certain exercises that don’t 
use your arms. Some aerobics routines involve using your arms and legs at the same 
time for a full-body workout, but it is easy to just do the leg and ab work while also 
keeping your arms in place. As your elbow begins to heal, you can then gradually start 
using it more. 

Many different workouts can be modified to where you are able to complete most of it 
without hurting your elbow or other injured parts of your body. This is perfect when you 
want to keep exercising, but you also don’t want to make your injury worse.
