Tennis elbow is the most common elbow complaint. It is often a painful and lengthy process.
Fortunately, you can treat tennis elbow effectively through a number of exercises.
I will explain to you exactly what causes tennis elbow, how you can recognize it by the symptoms, and how you can treat it yourself with 3 exercises.
so read on quickly.
What causes a tennis elbow?
Tennis elbow or tennis elbow occurs because the extensor tendon of the forearm is overloaded. The overload causes minor damage to the tendon. The tendon is broken down faster than it can be repaired. This causes pain on the outside of your elbow.
Your elbow consists of 3 pieces of bone:
- The humerus or upper arm bone
- The radius or radius bone
- Ulna or ulna
Your humerus forms a joint with your ulna, allowing you to bend and straighten your elbow. In addition, your radius and ulna form a joint that allows you to rotate your forearm. These bones form another joint in your wrist. The moment you rotate your forearm, your radius bone rotates around your ulna.
The tendon responsible for your tennis elbow runs from the outside of your elbow over your forearm to the base of your index finger. The function of the muscle is to lift your index finger and wrist and rotate your forearm.
The pain in your elbow makes your elbow stiff. The stiffness increases the overload on the tendon. This increases the pain and thus the stiffness. This is a vicious circle that you must break to successfully treat your tennis elbow.
What are the symptoms of a tennis elbow?
The symptoms of tennis elbow are related to the movements and activities that strain the muscle and tendon.
Pain in the elbow on the outside
Pain in the morning or after not moving the elbow for a long time
Pain in the elbow while lifting or making twisting movements
Stiffness of the elbow
Radiating pain/tingling in the forearm, index finger, and middle finger
Loss of strength in the arm and hand
Furthermore, it is painful to rotate your forearm, and bending your wrist sideways is painful.
If you have all these symptoms, you can be sure that you have tennis elbow.
In addition, the first tennis elbow exercise works as a kind of test. When this exercise is much more painful and stiff on the painful side than on the other side, this is also a known tennis elbow symptom.
Tennis elbow treatment with 3 exercises
The natural way of tendon repair takes about six weeks. That means that after about six weeks, the damage to the tendon is restored, solving the pain.
But with a tennis elbow, the overuse of the tendon keeps damaging the tendon. That’s why a tennis elbow doesn’t heal within six weeks.
But with the three exercises, I’ll show you how to break this cycle. That will help you get rid of that nasty tennis elbow fast.
Together with these exercises, you’ll have to give the tendon as much rest as possible.
Through this rest, the tendon will repair faster, reducing your recovery time.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to give your elbow the proper rest when you’re still working.
You can solve this problem by wearing a tennis elbow brace.
This brace supports the damaged tendon and muscles, which reduces the load
It will give them a chance to recover.
If you buy it right here, you will also support our website.
When the pain diminishes, it is time to start stretching the muscle. That is important because the tension of the muscle pulls on the damaged tendon.
Tennis elbow exercise 1: Stretching the tense muscle
The first tennis elbow stretching exercise is also the most important one. It will stretch the muscle to reduce the tension it is putting on your damaged tendon. When the stress reduces, the tendon will be able to repair.
The exercise goes like this:
- Grab the hand of the painful elbow with the hand of your healthy one.
- Extend your elbow
- Now bend your wrist of your painful elbow with your other hand.
- Now rotate your hand until you feel the tension in your elbow at the painful spot.
You can also find the stretching exercise on this YouTube video. Perform it a few times a day.
Tennis elbow exercise 2: Improving mobility of your elbow
The purpose of this second tennis elbow exercise is to increase the movement of your lower arm.
Increasing the mobility of your lower arm reduces the overuse and tension of your lower arm muscles even further.
The stretching exercise goes as follow:
- Place your painful elbow in a bending position in front of you with the palm of your hand faced up on a table.
- Localize the head of your radius with the thumb of your other hand. It feels like a bit of a knot.
- Now apply pressure on the radius head with your thumb towards the table.
- Finally, place the elbow of your healthy arm against the thumb of your sore arm and also push it down towards the table.
- Hold this for 20 seconds. Now you should feel the tension and the pain in your elbow.
You can find the stretching exercise also in this YouTube video. Perform this exercise several times a day..
Additionally, it would be best if you also increased the mobility of your wrist. You can do this by bending your elbow and then bend your wrist in every possible direction. Usually, flexion will be the movement that is limited the most and often painful.
Tennis elbow exercise 3: Training the muscles of your lower arm
When the tension and pain in your elbow reduces, it’s time to start restoring the strength in your lower arm muscles.
This way, you will increase the loadability of the tendon, which will cure the final part of your tennis elbow. That will also make sure that the problem doesn’t return in the future.
Perform this exercise as follow:
- Place your forearm on a table with your hand just over the edge.
- The palm of your hand should face the ground.
- Now lift your hand ten times without moving your forearm.
- Now turn your hand with the palm facing up.
- Again lift your hand ten times.
Repeat this exercise 3 times and two times a day. When it feels easy, try to add some weight, as you can see in this YouTube video.
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Conclusion
A tennis elbow is very well treatable with a series of tennis elbow stretching exercises.
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