Elbow pain

[BSousa]

I recently started to have a pain in the outside of my elbow. If i stretch the arm in front of me, palm down, the pain is in the outside of the elbow.

I would suspect tennis elbow, but this appeared after 5 long session of practise the FOREHAND and serves only. I did a couple hits with the backhand (2 handed) but those were minimal. It could be just the case of muscle soreness but I can almost pin-point the pain and seems to be on a tendom not a muscle (unless the muscle is stiff all the time).

If i raise my hand, palm facing forward, this pain appears, but after 1-2 seconds it disappears, if I repeat this 2-3 times I can't feel the pain again for about half an hour.

I'm using Head LiquidMetal 8 (power oriented) with no idea on the strings.

I've restrung (waiting for it to come back from shop) at lower tension range using's head Intellifiber which for what I read online, seems to be ok for the elbow. In last resort, I'll change to a natural gut to see if it helps.

Another tidbit of information, if I use a Prince TT Rage (very control oriented) I don't get elbow pain, but get wrist pain!


I'm going to a doctor in a couple weeks but until then I was wondering if you had any ideas/suggestions.

Thanks
Bruno

[hifi heretic]

Bruno,

While it is true that tennis-elbow (lateral epicondylitis) is more often associated with backhands, it can definitely stem from forehands as well. Consider this... the same muscles (and therefore tendons) that you use in hitting a backhand are also used to decelerate the racquet after hitting either a forehand or serve. Ditto for taking the racquet back in preparation for hitting a forehand. Try holding the racquet in front of you as if awaiting a serve... then quickly swing the racquet back to prepare to hit a forehand... do you feel a twinge?? If the pain is on the outside, then it's definitely tennis-elbow - though I'd certainly not take my alone. Seeing a doctor is the right thing to do. Good luck.