Upper body work suggestions needed

I've somehow trapped the ulnar nerve in my right elbow. As you might expect, I've been advised to avoid stressing my elbow in the hopes that it will settle down and go back to normal.

In the mean time I need suggestions as to upper body work I can do that won't stress the elbow.

I am by no means a doctor but here is my opinion.

I think you should let your elbow rest until it is healed and then hit lifting again. You dont want to do any more damage than is already done.

If you really must then i would say any exended lifts (straight arms) shouldnt hurt the elbow. You can do this in an upward motion or a pull down motion if you have a machine.  

I still think working out while injured is a bad idea though. You are not going to lose much muscle if any in the couple of weeks it will take to heal.

I'm with him in general - it's best to not train injuries directly and you'll heal faster if you don't stress your body too much.

 But here's the thing. If you have any pre-existing strength imbalances between the right and left side - and most people do - now's your chance to train to correct those. Plus, according to Eric Cressey and Charles Poliquin unilateral variations trigger some protective mechanisms that preserve muscle mass in the injuried side as well - not fully, but a lot more than if you do nothing. So I think that if you do unilateral variations of all the classics with your left and let your right rest and recover, you will on the whole recover faster and better than if you tried to either work  or rest through it. 

I am very much more right sided. So, it is a good point that this does give me opportunity to try to address that at least in part.

Ok. So I tried some unilateral work. It was significantly harder work than I expected. I suspect because I was having to be far more aware of form and avoiding collapsing my left shoulder and twisting my spine.

 Exactly. It's a common failing among strength traines - me included - that we don't do enough unilateral work. Which is a crying shame, because one of the most overlooked limiting factors is strength imbalances - the weaker side is understimulated, and the body stops developement in your dominant side when the strengt imbalance bedween sides exceeds 15-20% or so. Charles Poliquin claims 18.7%, but I think he tends to throw around numbers with more digits of presicion than is warranted.

 Which reminds me that one of my goals now should be to work on my one-legged squat to balance out legs. I should take my own advice more often ;)