Why do my tendons hurt so badly / Good advice for first timer?

First of all, what is your diet like?

Are you doing anything besides curls?

Is this what you mean?

Were you hyperextending your arms?

Dude,

You mean tendon or forearm? Whatever it is, you are doing it wrong.

If its tendon, you did the exercise wrong and you are rocking your arm below your elbow too much. You must maintain strict form.

I see you have no urge to look like a UFC fighter. But you should set your goals high. May I suggest you aspire to have a body like Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman or Dorian Yates. All worthy bodybuilders for a budding bodybuilder such as yourself.

Are you stretching your muscles after the exercise ?

I started playing tennis after a long time of not doing it.

I had joints and tendons pain the day after the sport.

I was attributing it to my aging body, but when I saw my doctor about other subject I told him about it.

He sent me to a medical physiotherapist.

He made me several tests and told me.

"The only problem you have is that you are doing a lot of sport and that is good. But as you are not stretching your muscles after the effort, they stay tense, and so the tense muscles pull on the tendons and the tendons pull on the joints and then you have the pain".

I had my muscles too contracted and tense, so he teached me many stretching exercises for the muscle groups I used when playing tennis.

It worked like a charm.... no more tendons and joints pain.

I can't imagine 5 lb DBs hurting anything unless you're dropping them on your head.

I usually recommend Schuler and Cosgrove's NROL for beginners. Good advice, exercise selection and programs. Do them as written and you will see results. (And if you're not seeing results in 4 weeks, you're doing something wrong.) However, you will need a gym or equipment.

At 5'11" and 140 you're pretty small. But here's the good part - you can put on 25 lbs of muscle over your entire body and still stay the same size. More or less. Your clothes will still fit but you will fill them out a little better and, dare I say, look better naked.

Good luck.

lefty

I wouldn't worry about it. If they were 5lb weights you probably did a ton of reps and just over stressed the tendons because they never get worked in that manner. Wait until you're not sore then get into a gym. You will gain nothing using 5 lb weights.

You say your goal is to gain definition, which means you need to build muscle. There is no such thing as toning, the amount of tone you have is simply a function of the amount of muscle and fat you have. Since it sounds like you're pretty low on bodyfat already you should be worried 100% about packing on muscle.

Seriously, I cannot overstate this, doing curls with 5 lbs is a waste of your time. You will gain no muscle and thus not add any tone, and you won't even get noticeably stronger. Also if all you're worried about is looking better you really don't need to be doing biceps anyway. Chest, shoulders, triceps are what's going to make you look better.

If you can curl for days and days, your probably wasting your time. You'd have better results and a better use of your time doing pushups and other bodyweight exercises.

Dude,

You grow not when you are doing your weights.
You grow when you are resting.
You are not supposed to do the same exercise everyday when you obviously have not recovered!

Very solid advice in this thread; the OP could learn a lot.

I think that he/she would be better off learning the proper way to work out with sets and reps, as well as very basic things on diet before going on a workout scheme.

As a physiotherapist/physical therapist and a once personal trainer, it's evident to me that you have a bit of tendonitis. I've struggled with the same problems myself when I first started to lift weights. You had probably never worked out much in your life before. That being said, most likely, if you just rest for about 5 days after the onset of the pain, it should be gone. If it last more than 7 days, then you should see a doctor or a PT.

There are a lot of very nice advice in this thread. Whatever the case, you are not going to get anywhere doing biceps exercises alone. What you want to concentrate on is "compound exercises." Those are exercises that work out several different body groups at the same time. You don't have access to a gym or a solid set of dumbells now, so lets think about what floor exercises you can do. A funny thing about the body is that if you work large groups of muscles, you will distribute muscle to various parts of the body. Core is important.

Push ups (with a very straight back to bring in your abs)

Dips (like against a counter or bench)

Abdominal Crunches (self explanatory)

No weight squats (self explanatory)

Back extensions (just lie face down and lift your upper body off floor)

Start with a few sets like 2 sets of 10 or so to begin with 3 times per week. Remember, this is just to get your body used to the load on your body. When you're done with the set, you shouldn't feel insane burn initially. It's already proven that your body is prone to tendonitis and inflammation.

When it's time to get serious, though...you're going to have to either get some dumbells or go to a gym. Go to www.bodybuilding.com and start to read the articles. Hint: stay away from the misc section...lol.