TE and poly. Help to find a setup.

[Valjean]

Originally Posted by BreakPoint

Tennis elbow is a tear in your elbow tendon. You can tear your tendon in many different ways. It can be one traumatic shock or it can be from repetitive use.

So are you suggesting that it was just a coincidence that I got TE during the two weeks I was using K-Gut Pro? That my elbow was going to go anyway from playing a lot of tennis and the timing just happened to be when I tried K-Gut Pro for the first time? Give me a freaking break!!!!! I guess everyone that has ever gotten TE from using poly were also just coincidences, i.e., that their elbow tendon was just about the tear right before they switched to a stiff poly string, right?

I guess you're also going to claim that people who have never had TE using a flexible racquet for many years but who get TE after switching to a stiff racquet, that they were just coincidences? That the racquet had nothing to do with it? It was from playing so much tennis BEFORE switching to the stiff racquet? OK, now we know how much you know about TE.

K-Gut Pro caused me TE, period! Why? It is a stiff string and stiff strings give many people elbow problems. Many people here have confirmed that K-Gut Pro is indeed stiff, contrary to what the USRSA says. But for some reason you refuse to believe it because you blindly accept as doctrine some mysterious methodology you don't even understand. Which is why you still haven't been able to explain why the USRSA measured K-Gut Pro to be significantly LESS stiff than K-Gut.

The main string I used was PSG Multifilament. The softest and most resilient string I have in my inventory. A string which I've used in the mains for many years with Gosen OG Sheep Micro in the crosses at a much higher tension than I strung the K-Gut Pro in the crosses, and with which I've had ZERO elbow problems with over the years.

"Basically, elbow tendonitis is an overuse injury caused by repeated contractions of muscles connected to the elbow joint of the arm used to hit the ball. Stress on the elbow is inevitable, because some of the force created when the ball hits the racket automatically passes from the racket into the forearm and then to the elbow. This repeated impact produces trauma to the tissues surrounding the elbow, leading to inflammation and soreness."

No, I'm saying that it is important to determine if, in your case, it came about over time and happened to coincide with your installing K-Gut Pro. PSGM has a higher rate of tension loss than many strings. How often do you restring too?

[nadalfan1992]

Breakpoint Im 16 but I been playing with ksix one tours flex 67 and current racquet microgel extremes flex 68. Been playing with year old string jobs in each one.Until I just strung the extreme with k-gut pro 17 any way I'm going to try some other strings.

[BreakPoint]

Originally Posted by Valjean

"Basically, elbow tendonitis is an overuse injury caused by repeated contractions of muscles connected to the elbow joint of the arm used to hit the ball. Stress on the elbow is inevitable, because some of the force created when the ball hits the racket automatically passes from the racket into the forearm and then to the elbow. This repeated impact produces trauma to the tissues surrounding the elbow, leading to inflammation and soreness."

No, I'm saying that it is important to determine if, in your case, it came about over time and happened to coincide with your installing K-Gut Pro. PSGM has a higher rate of tension loss than many strings. How often do you restring too?

I know tennis elbow very well. I've studied it extensively. Tennis elbow is micro tears to the tendon that connects your forearm muscles and wrist to the bone in your elbow. Since the damage is to the tendon and not the muscle, it takes a long time to heal. This is because, unlike your muscles, tendon do not receive much blood flow, which is needed to heal damage to your body. Have you spent much time in the Health & Fitness forum on this board? There's lots of discussions about TE there.

I string fairly often. Loss in tension is actually good for me because the stringbed becomes more powerful so I don't have to swing as hard to generate power. Loss in tension also makes the stringbed more comfortable than when the tension was higher. If PSGM was the cause of my TE, I would have gotten TE a LONG TIME ago. Before PSGM, I used a full bed of Gosen OG Sheep which never gave me any elbow issues at all, even though the stringbed is stiffer than with PSGM in the mains.

Again, K-Gut Pro is STIFF, and stiff strings are more likely to give people TE than softer strings. It doesn't matter how the string is constructed or what its made of. The only thing that matters is what the resultant stiffness is. And K-Gut Pro is STIFF. Just like it doesn't matter that Toyota and Lexus are supposed to be the most reliable cars sold. Lots of people are dying or having accidents in them due to reliability issues (Toyotas and Lexuses accelerating out of control on the highways).

And it isn't just my arm that says it's stiff. My dropweight stringer also says that it's stiff, and that's not subjective at all. When I string a mono syn gut or a multi, the weight on my dropweight machine will drop and I usually need to rachet it a couple of times and allow it to drop a few times before it reaches equilibrium at horizontal. This happens because the string is resilient and stretches a lot. However, when I string a poly, the weight doesn't drop or move even a millimeter, unlike the many inches or even foot of movement I get with syn guts or multis. That's because poly is stiff and has no resiliency so it doesn't stretch. Guess what? When I strung K-Gut Pro and K-Gut, the same thing happened as with poly. No drop at all with my drop weight. Those strings are just as stiff and have no resiliency nor stretch as polys. I should have stopped stringing my racquet right there and then and threw out the K-Gut Pro and K-Gut. But I was fooled by the marketing and high price of these strings and by the USRSA ratings. Never again.

[BreakPoint]

Originally Posted by nadalfan1992

Breakpoint Im 16 but I been playing with ksix one tours flex 67 and current racquet microgel extremes flex 68. Been playing with year old string jobs in each one.Until I just strung the extreme with k-gut pro 17 any way I'm going to try some other strings.

OK, thanks. I figured you were pretty young.

BTW, do you use a one-handed or two-handed backhand. It's very unlikely that a 16 year-old with a two-handed backhand will develop tennis elbow.

[Ripper014]

Hi gFlyer...

Sorry I finally get the sense of your post... you can modify your equipment to give you some relief from tennis elbow... but the usual cause is poor form (ie. bad stroke).

Getting some quality lessons may help you in the long run.

[nadalfan1992]

Breakpoint I play alot of slice on my backhand Because my two handed is not even half solid trying to make it more solid though.So its 75% of the time on my backhand it is slice.

[BreakPoint]

Originally Posted by nadalfan1992

Breakpoint I play alot of slice on my backhand Because my two handed is not even half solid trying to make it more solid though.So its 75% of the time on my backhand it is slice.

OK, I see. Slicing the ball puts much less stress on your elbow. When my elbow first started hurting, I resorted to slicing almost all of my backhands because it didn't hurt my elbow to hit slices but if I came over the ball - Ouch! Finally, I just stopped playing because I normally drive through my backhand with topspin or flat 90% of the time and if I couldn't be aggressive with my backhand (my best shot), I didn't want to play at all. So now I'm going cold turkey and resting until my TE heals.

[KenC]

TE is very complex and sometimes isn't completely the fault of tennis. A lot of computer users develop TE from using the mouse. The other thing is that TE is not just due to a 1HBH, as my wife uses a 2HBH and got it quite bad this year. In her case it was bad form. I got TE really bad a year ago from a hour of just hitting serves. Probably bad form again.

There is a section here for Health/Fitness where TE is discussed extensively. A quick summary of how to not get or how to get over TE would be something like:

1. Ice it immediately when it occurs. See a doctor when it occurs and to know how long you should lay off.
2. Get a few lessons to make sure your form is OK.
3. Switch immediately to Natural Gut at a lower tension while you are recovering.
4. Stop using stiff racquets that have little in the way of shock absorption. Also avoid light racquets that are head heavy, i.e., wilson hammers.
5. There are certain massaging techniques that help and there is this TheraBand exercise that seems to do wonders.
6. Warm up properly before going all out.
7. Give up on Poly strings.

I'm sure there are many other useful tips, but these are the ones that come to mind first.

[BreakPoint]

Originally Posted by KenC

TE is very complex and sometimes isn't completely the fault of tennis. A lot of computer users develop TE from using the mouse. The other thing is that TE is not just due to a 1HBH, as my wife uses a 2HBH and got it quite bad this year. In her case it was bad form. I got TE really bad a year ago from a hour of just hitting serves. Probably bad form again.

Did your wife get tennis elbow (outer side of the elbow) or golfer's elbow (the side of the elbow closest to her body when she extends her arm with her palm open facing the ceiling)? And was it in her primary arm elbow or off-arm elbow? Because TE is generally caused by hitting backhands while GE is generally caused by hitting forehands and serves.

[KenC]

Originally Posted by BreakPoint

Did your wife get tennis elbow (outer side of the elbow) or golfer's elbow (the side of the elbow closest to her body when she extends her arm with her palm open facing the ceiling)? And was it in her primary arm elbow or off-arm elbow? Because TE is generally caused by hitting backhands while GE is generally caused by hitting forehands and serves.

She has classic lateral epicondylitis on her right arm, and she is right-handed. We suspect she got it from playing against a friend who had no formal training and was able to only launch moonballs. My wife only had a few lessons to get her forehand and backhand set up, and she was not able to deal with the moonballs very well. She is also 47yo, which doesn't help.

She also adamantly refused to buy a better racquet, as her existing one is 300g and about 4pt HH. Luckily it is strung with a soft syn gut on the loose side. I will probably get her one of the new, lighter Pro Kennex 5i racquets for christmas and in the spring string it up with Babolat Tonic+. I will also buy that TheraBand just to keep it around in case of emergencies!

[mikeler]

Originally Posted by BreakPoint

Did your wife get tennis elbow (outer side of the elbow) or golfer's elbow (the side of the elbow closest to her body when she extends her arm with her palm open facing the ceiling)? And was it in her primary arm elbow or off-arm elbow? Because TE is generally caused by hitting backhands while GE is generally caused by hitting forehands and serves.

I got triceps tendinitis from serving too hard a year ago and also developed GE the last few months from hitting forehands too spinny. I'm also going cold turkey on tennis too after dealing on and off with both. I have made 5 visits to the chiropractor for ultrasound/electrotherapy the last 2 weeks which is really helping. I'm also taking glucosomine and doing ice/heat therapy on my own. My triceps pain is just about gone and my GE was almost gone until I squeezed something too hard yesterday. I'm hoping to be back on the court in a week.

[Valjean]

Originally Posted by BreakPoint

I know tennis elbow very well. I've studied it extensively. Tennis elbow is micro tears to the tendon that connects your forearm muscles and wrist to the bone in your elbow. Since the damage is to the tendon and not the muscle, it takes a long time to heal. This is because, unlike your muscles, tendon do not receive much blood flow, which is needed to heal damage to your body. Have you spent much time in the Health & Fitness forum on this board? There's lots of discussions about TE there.

I string fairly often. Loss in tension is actually good for me because the stringbed becomes more powerful so I don't have to swing as hard to generate power. Loss in tension also makes the stringbed more comfortable than when the tension was higher. If PSGM was the cause of my TE, I would have gotten TE a LONG TIME ago. Before PSGM, I used a full bed of Gosen OG Sheep which never gave me any elbow issues at all, even though the stringbed is stiffer than with PSGM in the mains.

Again, K-Gut Pro is STIFF, and stiff strings are more likely to give people TE than softer strings. It doesn't matter how the string is constructed or what its made of. The only thing that matters is what the resultant stiffness is. And K-Gut Pro is STIFF. Just like it doesn't matter that Toyota and Lexus are supposed to be the most reliable cars sold. Lots of people are dying or having accidents in them due to reliability issues (Toyotas and Lexuses accelerating out of control on the highways).

And it isn't just my arm that says it's stiff. My dropweight stringer also says that it's stiff, and that's not subjective at all. When I string a mono syn gut or a multi, the weight on my dropweight machine will drop and I usually need to rachet it a couple of times and allow it to drop a few times before it reaches equilibrium at horizontal. This happens because the string is resilient and stretches a lot. However, when I string a poly, the weight doesn't drop or move even a millimeter, unlike the many inches or even foot of movement I get with syn guts or multis. That's because poly is stiff and has no resiliency so it doesn't stretch. Guess what? When I strung K-Gut Pro and K-Gut, the same thing happened as with poly. No drop at all with my drop weight. Those strings are just as stiff and have no resiliency nor stretch as polys. I should have stopped stringing my racquet right there and then and threw out the K-Gut Pro and K-Gut. But I was fooled by the marketing and high price of these strings and by the USRSA ratings. Never again.

What you don't seem to know is what "overuse" does, or what it is when it comes to you, too. Anyone, anyone at all, who's played tennis seriously for more than 35 years, and claims to play every day, is a good candidate for tennis elbow, and other injuries too. Every young pro who travels the circuit can fall back on professional trainers and masseurs/massueses; most cross train, and will not attempt to play/practice tennis every day. A pro trainer recently accounted for a lack of tennis elbow on both tours, saying it is because so much time is spent, and needed for, building up the players' arms and shoulders. Yet you can claim to exceed even these professional players in play frequency, and ignore that advice, and expect to be immune? And when it does come on, it's something that just happened, completely unexpectedly--and is due to, what, a STRING change you say? Come on; and, by the way, how did you get to be such a *medical* specialist?

Do you really believe that tension loss only affects your launch angle when you play? Aren't you aware that tension loss and a decline in resiliency generally occur simultaneously, and that it means your arm and shoulder must do increasingly more of the work? This is how, for so many years, the USRSA has recommended you restring and drop tension five lbs. at so much as the first sign of TE. Mere string stiffness causes TE? Why? Because it's the only thing you can notice? A steady diet of Gosen's standard synthetic gut, strung incorrectly for your game, would be enough to do you in.

[gflyer]

In my case I think is a combination of factors.
I am pretty sure my form is good. I am quite advanced player.
I play tennis since I was a kid and this is the first time I developed TE.
The problem is coming from other factors:
1. Heavy hitter 1hbh
2. Like Poly strings
3. ~40 years old
4. Play tennis 5 times/week
5. Work on computer at least 8 hours/day
6. I am pretty light-weight (6', 155lb). Not a lot of muscles to support that arm.

...all the ingredients are there.
My plan is to get an arm-friendly set up and try to go through this problem and then work really hard to build strength/muscles on that arm.

[gflyer]

btw, HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everybody

[BreakPoint]

Originally Posted by KenC

She has classic lateral epicondylitis on her right arm, and she is right-handed. We suspect she got it from playing against a friend who had no formal training and was able to only launch moonballs. My wife only had a few lessons to get her forehand and backhand set up, and she was not able to deal with the moonballs very well. She is also 47yo, which doesn't help.

She also adamantly refused to buy a better racquet, as her existing one is 300g and about 4pt HH. Luckily it is strung with a soft syn gut on the loose side. I will probably get her one of the new, lighter Pro Kennex 5i racquets for christmas and in the spring string it up with Babolat Tonic+. I will also buy that TheraBand just to keep it around in case of emergencies!

OK, I see. I hope your wife's TE heals soon.