How much can you work your forearm/elbow?

[MasturB]

I play with a one-hander.

This past week, I practiced more serves in 2-3 days than I've hit in the last 6-7 months probably.

In January when it was colder and I didn't play or hit much, I was using my Dynaflex gyroball which is an awesome workout for your elbow. Also used my bodyblade and theraband to keep my arm and shoulder going.

But after serving that much the last few days, my elbow has a little bit of soreness. I'm taking a break for a few days to let it rest back up, but it was kind of a wakeup call for me to start back up my forearm and elbow exercises again.

Problem is, I don't know if doing those isolated forearm and elbow exercises 5-10 minutes a day everyday plus playing and serving will cause too much overload on my elbow.

Anyone have any suggestions? I've been icing my elbow just to be safe. Not as sore as it was yesterday so that's a good sign.

[El Diablo]

Your questions are unanswerable as you don't indicate where (medial, lateral, anterior, posterior?) your elbow symptoms are. And in what sense do you believe icing your elbow makes you "safe"? If you rest only "for a few days" your symptoms are likely to return.

[MasturB]

Don't know sure if it's the medial,lateral,anterior,or posterior.

But It's the bottom of the elbow. When I extend my arm all the way out, I feel it right on the solid part of the bottom of my elbow. So is that ulnar?

And I was always told since I used to play baseball and throw baseball a lot and had similar elbow soreness to ice it after play and 2-3 times a day. Not sure if it has any relevance to tennis but the throwing motion is similar to a tennis serve motion.

[tlm]

Nothing beats a free weight forearm workout to get your wrist, forearm and elbow strong and injury resistance. wrist curls, reverse curls, rope roll ups, bicep curls.

[MasturB]

Originally Posted by tlm

Nothing beats a free weight forearm workout to get your wrist, forearm and elbow strong and injury resistance. wrist curls, reverse curls, rope roll ups, bicep curls.

Nothing beats my dynaflex gyro pretty much doing all of these exercises at one time.

[tlm]

Originally Posted by MasturB

Nothing beats my dynaflex gyro pretty much doing all of these exercises at one time.

You can think what you want but your dynaflex cannot do the same thing as the different free weight movements.

[TimeToPlaySets]

Nothing beats REST.

[sadowsk2]

Originally Posted by TimeToPlaySets

Nothing beats REST.

Dead wrong if you have tendinosis. Thats the misconception ALOT of folks have on this board. They think any instance of TE is tendonitis , which would require rest. If its tendinosis, resting won't do a damn thing- you need to begin PT ASAP as has been my case

[MasturB]

Originally Posted by tlm

You can think what you want but your dynaflex cannot do the same thing as the different free weight movements.

I challenge you to re-consider.

[r2473]

Originally Posted by tlm

Nothing beats a free weight forearm workout to get your wrist, forearm and elbow strong and injury resistance. wrist curls, reverse curls, rope roll ups, bicep curls.

Originally Posted by MasturB

Nothing beats my dynaflex gyro pretty much doing all of these exercises at one time.

Nothing beats movements like back lever, front lever, slow muscle-up, L-sit / V-sit, etc.

[tlm]

Originally Posted by MasturB

I challenge you to re-consider.

I bet that I am older than you and play much more than you do all year every year, but because of my free weight training I do not have weak arms and elbows like you do.

With efficient weight training you only have to workout 3-4 days a week, unlike playing with gyro balls everyday.

[LeeD]

Obviously, there is an upper limit to what the human body can handle, and still recover to play again the next day.
Obviously, you exceeded that limit.
Hit less serves. Most players seem to agree 100 serves is approaching the upper limit for a fit player.
Exact number of serves depends on you, your fitness, your genes, your technique, and how hard you are actually serving.
Body hurts, would you believe it's telling you something?

[MasturB]

Originally Posted by tlm

I bet that I am older than you and play much more than you do all year every year, but because of my free weight training I do not have weak arms and elbows like you do.

With efficient weight training you only have to workout 3-4 days a week, unlike playing with gyro balls everyday.

lol.

I weight train 3-4 days a week, yoga twice a week, and cardio (non-tennis related) 2-3 times a week.

The reason I made this thread is because I don't want to overkill my elbow, with the weight training, gyro ball, and tennis. Considering I only use one-arm for tennis other than tossing the ball, that's a lot of activity.

[MasturB]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Obviously, there is an upper limit to what the human body can handle, and still recover to play again the next day.
Obviously, you exceeded that limit.
Hit less serves. Most players seem to agree 100 serves is approaching the upper limit for a fit player.
Exact number of serves depends on you, your fitness, your genes, your technique, and how hard you are actually serving.
Body hurts, would you believe it's telling you something?

Hard to tell.

I don't seem to properly condition my arm/elbow to build up endurance to hit that many serves, even practice serves. Like I said, I hit more serves in the last few days than I probably did the last 6 months combined previously. I've still been rallying and hitting for conditioning and because it's a great workout other than match play. But since I plan on getting back to match play here soon, I just decided to go out and hit some serves to get my timing and motion back.

I remember how reckless I was when I was younger and all I wanted to do was keep throwing a baseball (since Baseball was my first love as a youth). Threw harder, didn't warm up or stretch.

Similar elbow soreness but back then I only ended up with a shoulder impingement thank god an not a torn elbow ligament or anything (and ironically it was the shoulder impingement from baseball that sidelined me at home from playing or throwing, and turning on the tv one night to see Federer playing for the first time at US Open... which is what got me to pick up a racket in the first place and drop the baseball bat and glove)

The good news is the soreness is pretty much gone from the other day. I shall do a better job of counting how much I actually serve out there and build up endurance for my arm again.

Also waiting for my new gyro ball to come in the mail. I'm going to use that, my body blade, and the resistance bands to keep strengthening my rotator cuff, elbow, forearms, etc., even more than they already are (they're already pretty strong).