How to Crack Your Elbow

Cracking and Realigning Your Elbow

Flex your triceps to straighten your arm and crack your elbow. Flexing these muscles until they’re fully taut will straighten your arm and swell the muscles to their maximum size. Flexing your triceps will put pressure on the elbow joint to burst small air bubbles contained in the joint’s synovial fluid. This will often cause a loud “pop” sound, just like when you crack your knuckles. Your triceps are located on the back of your arm, on the back side of your biceps. Stop flexing if you feel extreme pain, as you may have a more serious medical condition than a dislocated elbow.

Relax and flex your triceps until you feel your elbow relocate. Use the triceps-flexing technique to realign a dislocated elbow joint. If you’ve dislocated your elbow through, for example, a sports injury, try popping your own elbow back in place before visiting a doctor. If your dislocated elbow doesn’t pop back into position the first time you flex, relax your triceps and let your arm bend a little at the elbow. Then, flex your triceps again. Keep relaxing and flexing your triceps until you feel your elbow pop back into position. Flexing and relaxing your arm will cause the bones that meet at your elbow to rub together.

Stop popping your elbow if the joint doesn’t relocate. If you’ve straightened and relaxed your elbow 5–6 times and the joint hasn’t popped back into place, stop flexing your arm. At this point, you’ll just be rubbing the ends of your arm bones together. This will not fix the joint, and may cause pain if the bones rub a nerve ending. In this situation, visit your doctor or a local Urgent Care clinic. Jess Cunningham Jess Cunningham, Sports & Exercise Physiotherapist Though a basic hinge, the elbow is part of the body's interconnected web. Elbow pain shows imbalance elsewhere. To crack the elbow, manual manipulation frees stuck joints. This directly relieves local tension. But broader techniques still harmonize the kinetic chain. Proper cracking balances the joint and interconnected fascia. It fixes joint tension locally while addressing the greater myofascial unity. Cracking the elbow requires targeted joint release along with whole body balance.

Seeking Medical Treatment

See a doctor if you can’t realign your dislocated elbow. In some instances, it can be difficult to tell an elbow dislocation from a break. If you’ve tried to pop your elbow back into place and it didn’t work, visit your doctor or an Urgent Care Center as soon as possible. This is especially urgent if your elbow continues to swell. If your elbow is causing you severe pain, or if you can’t bend your arm or no longer have feeling in your hand, visit the Emergency Room.

Visit your doctor if your elbow is swollen or painful. If you crack your elbow many times a day—whether on purpose or accidentally—you may develop a condition known as bursitis. Bursitis occurs when fluid sacs in your elbow swell up due to overuse and agitation. If your elbow joint(s) hurt when you move them and become swollen, you may have bursitis. If you heard a popping or cracking sound from your elbow and aren’t sure what caused it, you may have torn a ligament or a tendon, or fractured or dislocated your bone.

Describe your symptoms and pain level to your doctor. The doctor will want to know how long you’ve been experiencing elbow pain and how intense the pain is. Also make it clear to your doctor if the elbow hurts only when you’re using it, or if it’s painful even when at rest. If you don’t crack your elbow, but do make many repetitive motions with the arm throughout the day, you likely have tennis elbow. If the pain has built up over time, it’s likely a cause of repetitive stress by doing something like working at a computer, lifting too much weight at the gym, playing tennis or golf, or working as a plumber.

Request an X-ray if you suspect your elbow is broken. If your elbow is very painful or if you have trouble bending the arm or using your hand, your elbow may be seriously dislocated or your arm may be broken. In this case, ask the doctor to use an imaging scan like an X-ray or MRI to take a look at the elbow and arm bone. These procedures are painless and shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.

Ask the doctor for treatment options. If your elbow isn’t broken, you shouldn’t need any surgery or in-patient treatment for a painful elbow. Find out if you have tennis elbow, bursitis, or a sprain or strain. Then ask the doctor how you can decrease your elbow pain and prevent the condition from flaring up again. The doctor may begin by advising you to ice the elbow and let it rest when pain flares up. In most cases, the doctor will advise you to stop making short, repetitive motions with your elbow and to avoid cracking the joint unnecessarily.