Elbow (golfers?) injury recovery advice please.

[highrepute]

Thanks for your reply Alex.

I went to the physio last night but he didn't advise one vs the other, just said extension for FCU more likely to help than pronation for PTeres so see how you go with that and total rest and come back in a week.
I'd have gone to see Jon at clinic 919 but am in Stockport so went to see a specialist for golf injuries in Altrincham.
Quite interested in the flexbar as Serpico recommended it to me a while back.

Can I ask which physio you saw and how you fixed it?
Did you continue to climb and how long did it take?

Thanks again.
Jon

Hi Jon,

I've got a blue flexi bar. I find it really good for the old golfers (i do the equivalent to the extension exercise). It's a bit tricky to get right though. I showed it to Alex and he preferred just to use weights.

I had golfers really bad a few years ago and saw Jon at the 919, his advice would very much follow this article www.athlon.com.au/articles/r&i_dodgyelbow.pdf, plus daily icing and some serious massaging in the area and probably also around the neck/shoulder/back as he would suggest tightness here would inhibit recovery in the elbow. Of course tightness here also points to other problems!

I had elbow pain for nearly a year and at times was painful enough to make me cry. Full recovery in under 3 months. I climbed while recovering as long as I experienced no pain. Elbows are as strong as ever now and if I do get a bit of pain the extension exercise sorts me out.

I assumed shoulder instability too so have since worked hard to improve conditioning here, flexibility across back and posture while climbing.

I believe that 3 finger dragging causes my golfers as doing a lot of this seems to aggravate.

There is hope! Good luck

James

 

[mrjonathanr]

Hi James thanks for your considered reply.

Looks like the blue flexbar thing is the one to try.

I'm familiar with the the advice from the 919 Clinic and Saunders dodgy elbows. The picture I'm getting seems consistent - rest, self-discipline, eccentrics, massage, ice and stretches seem to be the industry standard for this problem.

The physio recommended a masseuse - she works with the GB athletic team - I went today and my elbow doesn't feel tight tonight. This may be because my general soreness and sensation of being abused have distracted me from my elbow woes. Or maybe back, shoulders and forearms were all way too tight. Time to take up yoga again I think.

Might give Tom Randall's stretches a go too. http://tomrandallclimbing.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/golfers-elbow-a-possible-solution/


These shoulder stretches seem worth a try too: Open Book Stretch - Golf Fitness Academy

I'll report back for those interested in this complaint.

cheers

Jon

Thanks for the encouragement.

PS 3 finger drag - wouldn't that really stress ring-finger flexor ie FCU? Makes sense to my rudimentary understanding.

 

[Boredboy]

Hey, I've got a golfers elbow at the moment due to fingerboard use :wall:

Because its still quite acute I use ultrasound, strapping, stretching and acupuncture which helps loads and I can still climb / train without to much bother as long as I avoid locking of on the fingerboard.

If it's been hanging around for a while and the tissue has become in a chronic state then the eccentric stuff and local massage / stretching is definitely the way forward.

I went to an interesting lecture given by a leading expert in electrotherapy and tissue repair on the stages of healing in tendinopathy. They looked at the tissue from various people having surgery for golfers / tennis elbow. He thought that each individual case is different and to get the treatment right you have to judge what stage of tendinopathy / inflammation or dis-repair the tissue is in. Unfortunately this means what might make one persons problem better may aggravate or not change another's.

 

[krymson]

I train lock off regularly on a pullup bar as well as at the wall sean-mccoll style. I am doing campusing as well as fingerboard about once a week and havent really had elbow issues, or when i had them they went away quite quickly

I've been keeping up antagonist training by doing pushups and tricep work, as well as doing preventative elbow maintenance with eccentric wrist curls. Being light also helps a bit

The closest i get to elbow pain is momentary niggles from deep lock off on the lower hand while campusing, but the preventative work i do seems to keep things at bay... knock on wood

 

[abarro81]

Can I ask which physio you saw and how you fixed it?
Did you continue to climb and how long did it take?

Started last August/Sept, I still have issues with the elbows. I can climb fine, but no campusing and have to limit fingerboarding. Plus no significant volume of downclimbing. I've continued to climb/train the whole time, didn't take any full rest, the most was to ditch all high volume training (aerocap, arc etc) and all fingerboarding for a while. I've done some of the hardest stuff I've ever done recently, so definitely have been able to climb/train through the issues rather than having them be a major setback.
Saw John Ostawhathisface. He said only to do 20 reps per day, but I usually do somewhere in the 20-60 region, after climbing, don't do them on rest days. I think this kind of thing is something you manage, and the standard rehab time is very much measured in months rather than days or weeks.

 

[mrjonathanr]

Thanks for your reply. The idea of management whilst climbing appeals to me a whole load more than cessation of activity. Not campussing etc isn't a huge loss as I like rock climbing, not campus boarding.

As I've caught this early it may settle, I can report back in a while with my experiences although as suggested above, individual problems may present similarly but vary a lot.

Having multiple muscles with a common insertion on the medial epicondyle certainly disproves 'intelligent design' though.

 

[mrjonathanr]

An update for interested parties... (ie if you have golfer's too)

I spent a month doing eccentrics for FCU without progressing, then went to the 919 clinic.

I have Pronator Teres not FCU afflicted so the treatment is outer rotation eccentrics as shown here:
by John Ostrovskis of 919 Clinic

with a twist..as instructed by John O. in fact..

1 set daily. 15 repetitions only. Work the weight progressively upwards till it's quite difficult to complete the set ..'to provocation'.

Sounds counter-intuitive to do scarcely 100 repetitions per week however it's working fine. I've been pretty relaxed about climbing, bumbling on grit for a month though I've just built a patio (and mixed all the mortar) without pain so now am going to up the ante climbing and report back in a bit.

 

[abarro81]

Anyone know anything about doing bicep curls with golfer's (FCU version mainly I think)? I always assumed it was out since attempting 1-armers makes the elbows feel bad, but I just tried some curls and it felt fine... I guess what I'm asking is: if it doesn't feel like it's aggravating the elbow then is there any reason not to do the odd set of curls?

 

[saltbeef]

what stage is the elbone at?
I'd have thought if its not hurting its probably not an issue. if you think the stresses that climbing puts on your arm would be more than likely be way more than a bicep curl (assuming its not 70kg dumbell!)

 

[abarro81]

what stage is the elbone at?

I'm in the hideously-slow-but-generally-steady improvement stage. Though I've been in that stage for about 9 months... It's fine climbing 95% of the time, I can fingerboard ok so long as I don't overdo it but campusing or hanging on 1 arm make it hurt.
I'll give it a bash throwing the odd set in and see if it causes any deterioration.

(assuming its not 70kg dumbell!)

I wish!

 

[Probes]

I have a re occurring golfers elbow, had for maybe 4 or 5 years. Right on the crest of the boney knob on the radius. It got to the point where campusing was impossible and locking off caused considerable pain. Tried the twisty weighted stick method, which initially worked then started to give me wrist problems, from the twsting action. Reverse curls just aggravated it so they were a no. Then I tried the rolley string on stick device using it for 2 mins x 3 times a day for probably 3 months. I virtually have no problems now and if it starts to come back which it does every few months I just go back to a few treatments a week and it sorts it pretty quick...


:whistle: :smart:

http://crusherholds.co.uk/forearm-and-wrist-exerciser

 

[saltbeef]

i'd see how it goes tbh, if it doesn't hurt it might help? who knows - nobody knows (having read ALOT on this over the last week)


but yeah i'd probably not crank 70kg on there!

 

[Fadanoid]

Sorry for dragging up an old thread. I've been sat here for 20 mins trying to find some info to help id what I might be suffering from in the elbow department.

The videos and descriptions seem to talk of areas that differ to my elbow pain.

Quite simply if you put your arm on a table to have an arm wrestle, the very point in which your elbow touches the table is where I have pain, if anything about a centimetere towards the upper arm.

The descriptions all seem to describe pain towards the sides of elbows? Can anyone help from previous experience?

 

[tresor]

Read this whole thread as golfers elbow was the reason I foudn this forum. There is a few posts in here about the medicin behind the injury but none of them contains what U've been told by doctors and physios here in sweden.

The pain is supposed to be caused by nervecells that has developed in the healing area of the tendoin. In the healing process blood vessels grows to feed the healing and in the same time these blood vessels give life to nervecells there they shouldn't be. The theory is that excentric excercises is better at getting rid of these blood vessels and hence starving the nervecells.

A friend of mine had pain in his Achille's tendoins for 3 years and nothing worked, NSAID's or excentric excercises.
Recently he found out of a treatment performed at a hospital localy to us that seems to be working extremly well. They inject a sclerosing liquid ( no idee what this means) at the actual tears in the tendoin, they find these with ultrasound, and the liquid will "cramp" the blood vessels and stop the blood flow thus starving the nervecells and kill them.

This is the explanation I got.

//Tresor

 

[tomtom]

Golfers elbow is in the 'runnel' between the pointy bit of the elbow and the next bone nearer to your body (if you're holding your arm next to you). Nice set of exercises here by Tom Randall... was chatting to SteveR of this parish a few weeks ago who had chronic elbow issues for years - and these exercises sorted him out...

http://tomrandallclimbing.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/golfers-elbow-a-possible-solution/

 

[Fadanoid]

I'll give these exercises a whirl for a week or two as it can't do any harm besides feeling like you're in some anti-masturbatory self discipline position.

 

[TMR]

Would be well worth spending some time on the mobility wod site imo. The "voodoo band" stuff, although sounding weird seems pretty valid. If you dont fancy spending money on the bands iv'e made a reasonable imitation by opening up a used bike inner tube and cutting the valve out. The exercise below feels like the best deep tissue massage in the world, and going through the full range of motion hurts like hell (in a good way)

Bench dip pull up elbow-itis | Feat. Kelly Starrett | MobilityWOD

 

[Fadanoid]

I have been doing these exercises for about 5 days now, along with press ups.
I have to say the pain has eased off considerably.
I even climbed for around 4 hours yesterday.

There may be something to this yoga lark :-\

 

[Rocksteady]

More resources on elbow problems here:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=6156

 

[mrjonathanr]

I don't use UKC as a rule but that's fairly comprehensive.

My eccentric exercises weren't stopping pain, seemed to be getting worse.

Turns out (after seeing Jon) that they WERE effective, my pronator problems are now sorted. But now I've got FCU problems, so different exercises and more patience needed.

He recommended tring a different stretch. essentially yoga purvattanasana, except fingers point back, not forward. certainly seems to nip the epicondyle, so it's doing something. We'll see.