Elbow (golfers?) injury recovery advice please.

[abarro81]

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.

I've tried this a bit recently on his suggestion. No idea if it's helping or not, since the elbows have been doing well anyway, but it definitely gets a good stretch going on

 

[spinmaster]

The yoga one was something I came up with when I was seeing John. Eccentrics did nothing and I accidently discovered that this was the only thing that I could find that hurt my elbows. So the theory was that we did that to cause provication and thus help heal the elbows.

I didnt seem to make any progress. I went to see a physio who was focused more on nerve issues and was told that this exercise hurt a lot becuase it put the nerves on stretch. Given that my neural tension is terrible thats why it hurt me so much. So I've now focused on nerve and back work and use the exercise to test progress, Certainly hurts a lot less now when I do it, but have a fair way to go before my nerves are back to normal.

 

[Ged]

Some things I have found over the last 5 weeks whilst battling the classic golfers elbow. I let it get to the stage where it was really sore. Totally stupid and I should have stopped climbing hard and started rehab a LOT sooner. I think this has led to it taking ages to heal, rather than probably being a quick fix. Hard trad in particular seemd to really mess it up, presumably because of all the locking off.

I tried all of the recomended eccentric wrist curls, and found it really hard to hit the sweet spot that caused the necesary slight pain in the tendon. Then I found this article...

http://www.climbing.com/skill/prevent-elbow-and-shoulder-injuries/

where Dave Mac recomends doing a different eccentric exercise that doesn't need any weights. I have found that exercise was much easier to get the desired pain, without having to lug round bg dumbells. And it's easy to do whilst at work etc.

I've been massaging the spot with one of those armaid things, which also feels like it's ghelping. As well as icing. I've also been doing easy climbing, which seems to make it feel better, and seems to be recomended rather than total rest. I upped it to doing some 7a's this week and it feels fine so far.

 

[slackline]

Have you tried Tommy's magic stretch?

 

[Ged]

A bit, but I find it phenomenally uncomfortable! Mainly due to my face being pressed into the floor. Will persist with it though as a fair few people seem to think it helped.

Seems to me so far though, that no one thing is the magic answer, but a combination of eccentric exercises, stretching, massage and icing will fix it. It just takes a while to figure out the best specific ones for you.

 

[Paul B]

My Evoluent 3 mouse at work seems to be making a massive difference to mine.

It has the added benefit of confusing anybody who tries to use my PC too. Endless fun.

 

[erm sam]

I have a trackerball mouse set on an inclined bit of plywood to reduce elbow stress. There is almost no rotation of the forearm, and I think it helped my elbow calm down..

 

[tomtom]

I learnt to use the mouse with both hands - which helps with twingy bows... I also find touchscreens make things 'different' (not better not worse)...

 

[slackline]

I just use a keyboard :geek:

 

[tomtom]

I just use a keyboard :geek:

Bet you've got one for you phone too

 

[slackline]

Yep, I control my phone from my desktop/laptop, why would anyone do any different? :clown:

 

[Ged]

My latest findings, for anyone struggling to get the eccentric exercises to work for golfers:

Basically, if it ain't making your tendon a bit sore whilst doing the exercise, it ain't working. Experiment with doing the exercises (the ecentric wrist curl and the eccentric lowering outwards) at different elbow angles. SO fully straight, a bit bent, 90 degrees and as bent as possible. For me, doing them with my arm bent as much as possible seems to find the sweet spot. It causes moderate pain whilst doing them, and after about a week of it I finally feel like I'm making progress with treatin g the injury, after 8 weeks of not getting anywhere. I have been recomended to do 2-3 sets of 6-8, twice per day, every other day. Afterwards, give it a really good massage, and ice, and also do that on the day off. BAsically really look after it to aid healing. It will definitely feel pretty tender for a bit, but within 12 hours for me, it feels noticeably stronger.

Usual caveat about seeking professional advice etc.

 

[Fiend]

Next problem. Golfer's is recurring, not badly so but enough to be worrying.

Doing the eccentric curls and rotations, with only just enough weight to cause discomfort at the injury site (12kg curls). This is now making my wrist sore and stiffen up quite a bit. I've been gently stretching and massaging it a bit but it's pretty worrying if it's preventing me from doing elbow rehab.

Help???

 

[Stahl]

Next problem. Golfer's is recurring, not badly so but enough to be worrying.

Doing the eccentric curls and rotations, with only just enough weight to cause discomfort at the injury site (12kg curls). This is now making my wrist sore and stiffen up quite a bit. I've been gently stretching and massaging it a bit but it's pretty worrying if it's preventing me from doing elbow rehab.

Help???

Current best regime according to Julian Saunders (as of about 4 months ago):

3 x 8 reps, twice a day, day on day off, heaviest weight you can manage, should hurt whilst doing it. Also massage hard the sore bit around the bone (not directly aggravating the nerve on the epicondyle) 5-10 mins/day on the "on" days. You are trying to stimulate the tendon to heal so needs to be quite aggressive.

 

[mrjonathanr]

I haven't read that but I would add: annoying the actual epicondyle does not sound wise, though finding where the sore point on the tendon is (will vary, mine was in worst place, actual tip of insertion) and massaging tissue up and around might be good. Maybe worth considering that a tight muscle+ tendon is placing tension on the injured site so massage to relax the muscle body might be worth a punt.

What fixed mine (after 18 miserable months) Fiend was this:
Give up climbing for a few months as nothing worked. Resume again at utterly trivial level. Build back up to normal incrementally over 2/3 months.

I also did eccentrics with heavy weights. I did 2x 25 reps at whatever kilos were knackering
Tom Randall's stretch, making sure to be stretching up with head&torso and legs at the same time, so spine quite arched, quite a powerful stretch.

One question. There are two forms of the eccentric loading. Do you know which one to do for you? Your condition can change over time- mine did.

 

[Fiend]

Eccentrics worked for me before, along with other stuff.

The problem is that now the eccentrics are aggravating and stiffening my wrist - any ideas / suggestions??

 

[mrjonathanr]

Play around with the protocol to protect your wrist, there is no set miracle package. And do some counter exercises/stretches for wrists

 

[skelf]

eccentrics, straight arm stretching (palms facing out push back of hands into hips and fingers to floor with shoulders back). Also I've heard folk banging on about bromelain supplements in order to speed up tendon healing. I've dabbled but don't know if my improvement was down to the first two, or just time, or it was some mad pinapple voodoo ?

 

[Fiend]

Play around with the protocol to protect your wrist, there is no set miracle package. And do some counter exercises/stretches for wrists

I'm not really sure how to do that?? The current weights seem only just enough to stimulate the elbow tendon, and I'm doing them with a fairly standard position and fairly standard ROM from what I've seen. I'm pretty sure my wrist has to move back down from the inner forearm for ecc curls and rotate out as far as possible for ecc rotators and that's what aggravates it - specific ideas to avoid that would be welcome!

I am doing stretches and massage for the wrist now, I'm not sure what counter exercises to do though??

 

[BicepsMou]

Had recurrent trouble with golfers’ over the last years. Eccentrics worked for me to a certain extent, but did not provide durable relief. As soon as I restarted to do lock-off and compression exercises the trouble started again.
And yes, I’m aware those are known to be hard on the elbows. But still fun to train. Wisdom is not always a question of age

Eight weeks back, I came across this link in the ‘tight forearm’ thread (thanks jfdm!):
https://youtu.be/mSZWSQSSEjE

As the static forearm stretches I tried before did not really seem to work for me, I followed this ‘pulsing’ advice and wrist prep sequence from the GMB guys for the last weeks and especially the elbow rotations working the pronator (2’33’’) felt as if they really hit the right spot. Overly tight pronators are one of the many possible causes of golfers’, so this is obviously the issue for me.

Four to six weeks later my elbows were completely painfree and even after starting to do lock-off / compression exercises again (while religiously maintaining the wrist prep work before and after), my elbows still feel good.

Also nice: They can be done almost anywhere, even at a desk and are really quick too. Easy to incorporate in routine and to make a habit out of it.

Hth