elbow
Training around elbow pain
Tennis elbow and golfer's elbow are load-tolerance problems in a tendon. RepRoute's flag is coarse: it takes every pressing and pulling movement out of your plan and refills the gaps from your legs and core.
Straight-bar curls, kipping pull-ups and high-rep gripping work are the usual aggravators for an irritated elbow tendon.
The elbow tag in RepRoute's catalogue sits on exactly the same four patterns as the shoulder tag: horizontal push, overhead push, rows and vertical pulls. Every single row in those patterns carries it. So flagging an elbow REMOVES all of your upper-body pressing and pulling — there is no "neutral grip only" setting, because the catalogue can't tell grips apart.
Days emptied by that are refilled with up to three exercises from the patterns still legal for you — squats, hinges, lunges, core. Your lower body is untouched.
For a grumbling tendon that only objects to certain movements, the flag is almost certainly heavier-handed than you want. Skip it, and use Swap in the session on the specific lifts that bite. That keeps the rest of your pressing and pulling in the plan.
What the flag removes from your plan
Whole movement patterns, not individual exercises — every exercise in these patterns carries the elbow tag.
- ×Horizontal pushing (bench, push-up)
- ×Vertical pushing (overhead press)
- ×Horizontal pulling (rows)
- ×Vertical pulling (pull-up, pulldown)
What RepRoute can still program
These carry no elbow tag, so they survive the strip and are what emptied days get refilled from. They are not one-for-one replacements — the engine removes and rebuilds, it does not substitute like for like.
Goblet Squat
quadriceps
Trap Bar Deadlift
quadriceps
Leg Press
quadriceps
Plank
abdominals
Common questions
Physically, often yes. But RepRoute's flag can't express that — the elbow tag covers every row and every pulldown in the catalogue, so the flag removes them all. If you want to keep pulling with a grip that works, leave the flag off and swap the individual movements.
Squats, lunges, hip-hinges and core work — none of which carry the elbow tag. In practice a flagged elbow turns your week into lower-body-and-core training until you clear it.
Until you clear the flag in Settings → Injuries. RepRoute won't quietly re-introduce a movement you've flagged — but note that clearing the flag doesn't restore the exercises already stripped from your current plan. Generate a new plan for that.
See it in action
Free plan, no credit card. Flag the elbow in onboarding and the conflicting movements are stripped from your plan straight away.