Chronic medial elbow pain (aka: medial epicondylitis, golfer's elbow, medial epicondylopathy) is a very common issues among climbers. They may initially begin to develop it simply due to learning how to climb and the forearm muscles are under developed. So there is a bit of a learning curve. But the longer one climbs there may be certain muscles in the forearms that work a lot and others that get neglected. These imbalances may eventually lead to chronic issues that are not exactly detrimental to your body but annoying aches that don’t seem to go away.
Follow along with this video to learn about the medial elbow.
There are 5 muscles that connect to the inside elbow bone:
Flexor digitorum superficialis
Palmaris Longus
Flexor carpi radialis
Flexor carpi ulnaris
Pronator Teres
Over reliance on certain muscles and neglecting others in this group can all create chronic medial elbow pain. Finger flexors can mask the weakness of your wrist flexors. This is why people may have trouble with slopers because the wrist flexors are so weak that your unable to lock onto those slopers. Practicing easier slopy climbs will help to slowly build up wrist flexion strength. There are also simple exercises you can follow along in the video to help build strength to your medial elbow!