Tennis elbow can be one of the the most frustrating injuries you can get with a common pattern of recovery anywhere between 4 and 18 months. 85% of them get better by 1 year. Pain is located on the outside of the elbow.

Ironically it’s actually very rare to see tennis elbow in a tennis player.

It’s more common in gardeners and parents constantly picking up kids. As we come into spring and the garden triples in size people spend hours in the garden when they haven’t for a while and this leads to the injury.  

Tennis Elbow Symptoms

It can be so annoying that if you have your arm bent for a while then try and straighten it can be really painful. People describe being asleep and getting woken up when trying to straighten their elbow. 

If you have tennis elbow and someone attempts to shake your hand, you aren’t in a hurry to shake hands.  Opening doors and jars, picking up a bag or any other activity that requires gripping and straightening your arm. 

Tennis Elbow Cause

So what causes it? You can nearly always trace it to a sudden overload of something involving excessive gripping of the wrist. For example, if you decided to get on the power tools for a weekend on a background of minimal power tool use, that could do it. 

Sometimes it becomes mildly uncomfortable but over a series of weeks it continues to get worse.

It normally involves the tendon of the muscles that extends your wrist. It particularly affects a little muscle called extensor carpi radialis which is designed to lock your wrist into place while you do things with your wrist. 

If the load is too much for the tendon then the tendons structure starts to change, abnormal blood vessels grow into it and the collagen makeup begins to change.

So what can help tennis elbow?

The important thing to note is that a 4 month recovery is considered a good result in terms of recovery from tennis elbow. There is a great study that looked at tennis elbow treatment that compared the following 

Physio techniques with a progressive strength program

Progressive strength program alone

Cortisone injection into the elbow with a strength program

The winner was physio techniques with a strength program by a lot. The group that took the longest to recover was the cortisone jab group. Despite getting initial pain relief they took the longest to fully resolve. 

I will often start peoples rehab with this exercise. It helps reduce pain and is the first place I start for rebuilding grip strength. Click the link HERE to watch how to do it.

Avoid the following to help settle the pain

Pain-provoking activities (avoid  lifting with a straight arm and palm down. Change to palm up with a more bent elbow and grip less aggressively when holding something that causes pain 

Come in for Physiotherapy 

You need to be assessed on what caused the tennis elbow. What is weak in your upper body that needs strengthening to offload the injury. We will tape the area to let it settle and do some techniques to reduce the pain. 

You will need your program increased over time to improve the symptoms.

You can click HERE to book an appointment through our online booking system. 

We often see tennis elbows that haven’t got better. My question to you is 

Is the load you are lifting heavy enough to continue to improve?

Have you done the program for long enough?

Is your grip strength being assessed and getting better slowly?

What other muscles are weak in your upper or lower body on the same side. Has this been assessed? 

Click HERE to book an appointment online.