Tennis Elbow Exercises

Article by Geoff Hunt

Tennis elbow can be a very nagging and even debilitating injury that usually affects people aged 35-65.

There are a few basic steps that you can take that ensures faster recovery from tennis elbow:

Improvement in technique/life style change

Especially in the case of athletes, physiotherapists work in conjunction with coaches, to first analyze what could be causing the tennis elbow. Once the problem is isolated, then certain modifications are made to the player’s technique to ensure that there is no further damage to the elbow. It is often heard that certain athletes have been advised to refrain from certain shots, or they have been advised to use a double handed backhand instead of a single handed one, such changes are usually made at the advice of the coach and physiotherapist to ensure that there is no further damage to the elbow.

If the person affected is not an athlete and is actually a person who is engaged in manual labour, then they are usually advised long periods of rest, and the patients are also advised not to carry out strenuous tasks that might further incapacitate them from performing their duties. In some chronic cases people have been forced to quit their labour intensive jobs all together. In either case, people have to be prepared to work with their physiotherapist to recognize the key aspects of tennis elbow treatment.

In essence irrespective of the activity or profession a person is engaged in, there will be some minor or major lifestyle adjustments that have to be made.

Exercise

Depending on the extent of damage done to the elbow, there are numerous exercises that you can perform. In essence what these exercises do is restore the blood flow to the damaged tendons. Exercises like walking, swimming and jogging improve the over blood circulation of the body, and hence improve the recovery time. Additionally aerobics has also been beneficial in some cases. But there is a word of caution here, sometimes if the exercises are not carried out as prescribed or the exercises are not performed properly, they might end up doing further damage.

The biggest reason for poor recovery from tennis elbow is that people do not pay attention to the advice that physiotherapists offer them, all the training exercises and restrictions are designed for each person individually, and assuming that doing what another person is doing for tennis elbow will have the same impact on a different person suffering from tennis elbow is a common misconception. There are sub-types of tennis elbow and one should follow the customized exercise and life style changes suggested by a trained professional.