A tennis elbow is the most common cause of elbow pain. It’s often a painful and long-lasting problem.
Fortunately, you can treat it efficiently by yourself with just three exercises.
You have to know what to do.
And that’s what I will teach you in this post.
I’ll explain to you the cause of the pain and why it often doesn’t disappear by itself.
I’ll also show you how you can break this vicious cycle with just three simple exercises.
This way, you will be sleeping without pain within a few days again.
And the rest of the pain will disappear soon after.
The first thing you have to do is buy a tennis elbow brace. It will reduce the pressure on the damaged tendon and support it. That way you’ll feel pain during the day and the tendon can recover.
Tennis elbow treatment plan:
- Use a tennis elbow brace to reduce the forces on the elbow
- Limit painful activities as much as possible to rest your elbow
- Stretch and train the tendon to aid its repair
In fact: This is what you will learn today:
What causes a tennis elbow?
A tennis elbow is also known as lateral epicondylitis.
That means that there is an inflammatory reaction of the outer side of your elbow. But actually, there is no inflammatory reaction. Instead, it’s a degenerative process of the tendon due to overuse. That’s why we now call it lateral epicondylalgia.
The cause of a tennis elbow is overuse of the extensor tendon. Your lower arm muscles connect to this tendon. They perform extension of your wrist and rotation of your lower arm.
Often heavy work and rotating your lower arm cause overuse. Examples are doing laundry and ironing a lot.
But in many cases, the overload activity is unclear.
Overload of the tendon causes microtears in the tendon. When the recovery period for the tendon is too short, these tears don’t heal properly. It results in degeneration of the tendon and increased tension in the muscles of your lower arm.
Also, the mobility of your reduces due to the overload, resulting in less rotation. That also increases the load on the tendons in your lower arm and creates a vicious circle that slows down the recovery of a tennis elbow.
Also, neck pain often accompanies a tennis elbow.
What are the symptoms of a tennis elbow?
The following symptoms may indicate that you have a tennis elbow:
- Pain in your elbow at the lateral side
- Pain in the morning or after a long time of inactivity of your elbow
- Stiffness in your elbow
- Radiating pain in your forearm and sometimes in your index finger and middle finger.
- Loss of power in your hand.
The most prominent symptom is the pain on the lateral side of your elbow. That is the location of the damaged tendon. The pain is one of the signs of the degeneration that is taking place.
The second sign of degeneration is stiffness and sometimes a minor swelling. The stiffness can be in your elbow as well as in your wrist.
Also, the radiating pain in your forearm and fingers is a prevalent problem for tennis elbow patients. You’ll feel the radiating pain in your index finger and middle finger.
The damaged tendon causes the loss of power in your hand. Because of the pain and the damage of the tendon, the muscles in your forearm lose their functionality. It’s like when you’ve trained too heavy, and you’re sore the next day. You don’t have as much power as you usually have. In a tennis elbow, this is the case every day.
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 of 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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