[gremlin]

Hi,

I've got a bit of the old golfers (climbers) elbow in both arms, owing to me being an overkeen novice and climbing too much, too soon.

Do I therefore:

a. Continue climbing at a reduced level, stretch and do oppositional weight training?
b. Take two weeks off and do nothing whatsoever?
c. Resist the urge to climb but keep up with the stretching and oppositional weights?
d. None of the above.

Ta.

[GCW]

Sage advice on the general topic here. 

[douglas]

I would do a bit of c), then start on a). I'd also do lots of e)


e) shoulder strengthing, notably rotator cuff exercises with a theraband and nice wide pressups

[gremlin]

Thanks for the advice chaps. I have looked at the tendonitis posts on here before but I can't remember seeing anything regarding climbing during the rehabilitation phase.
Common sense would say to stop climbing but conversely, I 've also heard that if you stop climbing completely, scar tissue can stat to develop? Can anyone corroborate this?

Ta. 

[JohnM]

Just follow the advice in this pdf http://www.athlon.com.au/articles/r&i_dodgyelbow.pdf.  I find that two to three sessions of the wrist curl exercises clear my elbow tendonitis up nicely.  Use a weight heavy enough to make the last two or three reps quite tough whilst still maintaining a steady controlled contraction.  The part where I fail is not maintaining this to keep the tendonitis at bay and wait for it to get bad again before I do more exercises.  It is important to two or three sessions a week for the long term. 

[duncan]

I have looked at the tendonitis posts on here before but I can't remember seeing anything regarding climbing during the rehabilitation phase.
Common sense would say to stop climbing but conversely, I 've also heard that if you stop climbing completely, scar tissue can stat to develop? Can anyone corroborate this?

Generally speaking, common sense is probably wrong here.  Once things are healing, mechanically loading tissue an appropriate amount is almost always good.   The difficult bit is judging what is "appropriate" of course.

Mechanical loading may also be necessary to kick-start a long-term problem into healing mode [SCIENCE] again.  Most effective treatments for long-term tendonitis (more accurately tendonosis) seem to involve some degree of deliberate stirring things up a little.  Eccentric loading probably falls into this category.  Whether this works by promoting less and better-quality scar tissue or by restarting the inflammatory process or by a pain neurophysiological mechanism is open to conjecture.  For whatever reason, some activity is almost always better than total rest.

[slackline]

Golfers/Tennis elbow etc. - what eccentrics do

(Linked in the forums due to the blogpile, but likely easier to find in the future in a thread on elbows, also linked to from the wiki).

[SA Chris]

And what do non-eccentric people do?

[Ged]

http://onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/2011/02/golferstennis-elbow-etc-what-eccentrics.html

[slackline]

http://onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/2011/02/golferstennis-elbow-etc-what-eccentrics.html

 

[ducko]

i had tednon problems when first starting climbing because i over did it like a foool!

so, i decided too have two weeks off climbing i then went back indoor climbing doing lots of easy routes traversing and downclimbing routes and im all good now thank god!

[Serpico]

I've been seeing promising results for my tennis elbow through doing these:


I use a green Cando Flexbar, cheaper than Theraband, but starting with a lighter one would be advisable if you haven't already been doing some eccentric wrist curls.
The exercise definitely hits the spot in a way wrist curls with dumbbells doesn't for me, it also doesn't make my wrists click the same.  Do 3 x 15 reps and then ice.

[craic-head]

Would you advise the red one as a starter?
It's a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string' type of question, apologies.
I'm not doing eccentric curls at the moment but very keen to get going with something before the slight twinges I'm getting now get worse.
Cheers

[slackline]

It's a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string stretchy rubber' type of question, apologies.

 

[Serpico]

Would you advise the red one as a starter?

My only experience is of the green Cando one. If the red is the lighter version then the answer is probably....
You can vary the resistance by how much of a twist you use, if you're not that injured the green could be ok to start, you'll want to progress to at least the green ultimately anyway.

[craic-head]

Thanks for that