: Elbows cracking and popping I recently began to use many movements that are stressful on elbows all at once — pull-ups, pull-up holds, L-sit on paralletes, etc. My elbows were sore afterwards — so I sensibly chopped

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I don't think you should be worried. Instead, here are some points to get you closer to a solution:

Warm up. A general rule of thumb is to incorporate change gradually to avoid injury. Warm up your target muscles/joints with smaller weights or fewer repetitions. Gradually increase until you are in a challenging rhythm for the remainder of your workout. Doing this over the course of 3 to 6 sets will reduce shock to your joints.
Rest. Give your body protein and other nutrients if possible within 30 minutes of your workout to help your body repair. Rest periods can be 2 or more days to help your muscles and joints recover properly.
New excercises. When your body is not used to something it has to adapt. Greatly increasing the load on a muscle group that is not used to it will result in very sore muscles for several days. The days of rest they need will decrease as you use them more.
Diet. Some food has been found to help our body repair/maintain our joints more effectively.
Check this article out.
And this one.
My experience. I am young and my bones and joints have cracked from head to toe non-stop for the majority of my life. I go to the gym and the pain I get is in my wrists. This is usually solved by changing my eating habits, rest periods, and/or excercises. Switching from a high-joint-stress excercise (dumbell bench press) to a low stress excercise (machine bench press), for example, allows my wrists to fix themselves up (a week or two of this routine is sufficient).