5 months with Tennis Elbow so far; help :-(
- Thread starter sharif
- Start date
the elbow & down into the forearm. maybe but that's always how it felt even when it first started.
3x12 twice a day. Green. It's ok to have pain doing these, 4/10 max. Release each repeat very slowly and grab the bar gently.
wow this is just mind boggling to me, i've never heard of someone being diagnosed with tennis elbow and being told to just take 2 weeks off. Something's not adding up here.
Ronaldo
Bionic Poster
Two weeks and take a slow boat to China
EggSalad
Hall of Fame
Unless you solve the root cause, it’s not going away. Rest, Softer strings, new frames, pickleball, PT, none of that is helping until you treat the underlying condition.
TE is inflammation in the tendons on the outside of your forearm. The inflammation is cause by the tendons being too tight and overworked because the muscles/fascia in your forearm are stuck together.
Continuing to try other options just adds more stress to those tendons and increases the risk or long term damage or needing surgery.
TE is inflammation in the tendons on the outside of your forearm. The inflammation is cause by the tendons being too tight and overworked because the muscles/fascia in your forearm are stuck together.
Continuing to try other options just adds more stress to those tendons and increases the risk or long term damage or needing surgery.
is the scar tissue from the damaged tendons?
EggSalad
Hall of Fame
I’m certainly not an expert. And I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. But in order to get to the tendon healing, you have to free up the muscles/fascia that is stuck.Too tight tendons eh. You sound like an expert...
Tendons need to be loaded to heal. Loading them eccentrically or isometrically is the best way to promote tendon healing.
Sometimes. But OP was seen by doctors, so I'm sure he got an MRI.
Yes, from the injury. My PT tested my grip strength and said my tendon was strong (this was already a few months in), so I was just dealing w pain. He had me do eccentric exercises, I used the green flexbar, etc., but still had the pain. He even used the metal PT blade to manipulate the fascia, but didn't do it enough, apparently. When I finally massaged it myself for a few days, then the pain ceased. It hasn't returned. I'm starting to use poly again but at low tension.
The orthopedic surgeon wanted me to get surgery, no surprise. He probably would've gone in there and cleaned up/removed scar tissue, and I would've been fine, same result.
Tmano
Hall of Fame
I believe you are right at this point.
wow so interesting. I do massage mine when it hurts & they do it at PT each time along with stim but it still hurt for 3 days this time around
Tmano
Hall of Fame
How do you massage it? Is there a video that could help?Thanks
ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
Do you massage forearm every time before you play? I will do that forever now … other then when I forget. Just a couple of minutes with left hand fingers and thumb on right forearm … find any sore spots/knots and work on them. Hit tricep also briefly … good to go. Doubt it matters, but on forearm I work fingers in direction from wrist to elbow.
My theory is massage right before helps avoid further injury. Same with my calves before play now.
We are all such TE experts … about something with few absolutes.
At least eccentric stretch and massage has anecdotal evidence. But … if all TE is not the same, and other things mimic TE … lots of guessing going on. I doubt the docs know for sure either.
ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
What Bob the Happy said in post #15 … rest is speculation
I used Jamie Dreyers video … including roller bar at first.
Note where he points out “might want to start with red flexbar … it’s and injury”. I went with green, but I could see where some might want to start with less. Seems at first we need to stretch, I would think strengthening later. ???
tt.tennis-warehouse.com
I used Jamie Dreyers video … including roller bar at first.
Note where he points out “might want to start with red flexbar … it’s and injury”. I went with green, but I could see where some might want to start with less. Seems at first we need to stretch, I would think strengthening later. ???
5 months with Tennis Elbow so far; help :-(
Hi; So I know there are numerous threads about TE. I've been struggling with it off & on for 5 months now. I'm a 3.5 female doubles player. I've been working on my technique, switched racquets from a Head instinct oversized power 110 to a Wilson Clash. I only use multifilament strings & have...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com
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Hi. You say you're playing twice a week, but I wonder if you're not including your lessons, clinics, or practices.
Could it be that you're actually hitting tennis balls 4-5 /week and that may be more load thanyou need now.
Do you have a one handed BH volley? Perhaps you could stabilize and use two hands.
A simple strength test is to bounce the ball on the strings twenty times (a little hand eye coordination is involved). You may do this w/ the palm pointed up once and then repeat the test w/ palm pointed down, which is usually harder and will stress the typical muscles involved w/ tennis elbow.
One other exercise I like for the elbow and the shoulder is to hang off a pullup bar ("Dead hang") for upto 5 minutes. You may similarily alternate grips w/ palms facing forwards or back to work different parts. I like the therabar exercises too but have switched to hanging b/c it seems like it decompresses everything.
to say you don't need rest is lunacy, it's not one or the other it's bothWhat Bob the Happy said in post #15 … rest is speculation
I used Jamie Dreyers video … including roller bar at first.
Note where he points out “might want to start with red flexbar … it’s and injury”. I went with green, but I could see where some might want to start with less. Seems at first we need to stretch, I would think strengthening later. ???
5 months with Tennis Elbow so far; help :-(
Hi; So I know there are numerous threads about TE. I've been struggling with it off & on for 5 months now. I'm a 3.5 female doubles player. I've been working on my technique, switched racquets from a Head instinct oversized power 110 to a Wilson Clash. I only use multifilament strings & have...
Fintft
G.O.A.T.
I've seen Kuntrementova carrying a massage gun in her bag and using for massaging the inside of her arm.Do you massage forearm every time before you play? I will do that forever now … other then when I forget. Just a couple of minutes with left hand fingers and thumb on right forearm … find any sore spots/knots and work on them. Hit tricep also briefly … good to go. Doubt it matters, but on forearm I work fingers in direction from wrist to elbow.
My theory is massage right before helps avoid further injury. Same with my calves before play now.
We are all such TE experts … about something with few absolutes.
ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
I don’t use my massage gun on forearm … seems like a more focused and gentle finger exploration is best. I do use the gun on my shoulder … surprisingly underarm pickleball serve creates some sore spots.
Dude... this is a family site!!!
no I'm only playing twice a week currently - one time being an hour lesson & the other a clinic for 1 & 1/2 hours. Then I've been in PT for twice a week (now once a week) & I also have my trainer once a week. I have a 2 handed back hand ground stroke & a 2 handed back hand volley. good to know about the exercises thx
Bisquick
Rookie
Got a hit in today and the TE didn’t bother me much. Still keeping up the regimen to manage it.
One thing that I didn’t add - been doing figure 8 swings with a slightly heavier racket than my playing stick a few times a day. I do this both starting with a forward motion and then reverse this.
I do both arms - it’s really helping to keep things moving well with minimal pain.
I vary my grip strength from weak to strong.
One thing that I didn’t add - been doing figure 8 swings with a slightly heavier racket than my playing stick a few times a day. I do this both starting with a forward motion and then reverse this.
I do both arms - it’s really helping to keep things moving well with minimal pain.
I vary my grip strength from weak to strong.
ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
To begin with I’m not nearly as certain about any of this than you appear to be. When I got my bad TE (9 months before I could play tennis matches) I read everything I could find on TE because I was scared of losing my lifetime game. One thing that stood out doing my research … everyone including the medical and science communities have more questions than answers regarding TE and tendon injury.
Pretty sure brother Bob (@happyandbob ) was addressing the “just take a year off and do nothing else“ thinking with the “rest won’t cure TE”. The general consensus for a long time was the early injury … say two weeks … was a key time for rest because you could turn tendonitis (temporary) into tendinopathy (chronic). I actually read recent research where some are starting to think this is actually wrong. The thinking was we all have constant pockets of tendon damage as the normal cycle, but the strong parts cover it. By the time you think you have early TE, you have already been in tendinopathy cycle. In PT, some call it “treat the donut not the hole”.
Anyway, we should use the word “probably” a lot more when giving TE advice. For example in my interaction with fellow ttw TE sufferers at the time of my TE, all of these happened to ttw members:
- took two weeks off, no changes or PT, no problem returning to tennis
- took a year off, no changes or PT, no problem returning to tennis
- took a year off, no changes or PT, TE came back returning to tennis
- played through TE, turned it into a 2-3 year injury
- took two weeks off, then started green flexbar, soon after that starting light hitting with ball machine, hit nothing with sharp pain (which only happened with serves and forehands even though pain was at lateral epicondyle), backhands didn’t hurt at all, forehands became better and better with ball machine sessions, pretty much 9 months until could serve
That last one was me … all of this to make the point not all TE is the same, and as much as we want a cookie cutter solution and answers … there will be a degree of guessing.
For me … I didn’t want to be that guy that took an entire year off only to still have a fubared elbow. So I made a plan … filled with guessing:
1) take the two weeks off … might have been a little more … seemed like logical choice for the insurance of initial healing
2) massage and green flexbar
3) can’t remember exact time off before hitting ball machine ... but let’s say 2 months
Ball machine session rules:
- sharp pain, stop hitting that stroke immediately and try in future ball machine sessions
- moderate discomfort ok … unless pain the next day (didn’t happen, was either sharp pain hitting or ok next day)
- so hit mainly backhands and full baseline forehands at first (forehand volleys hurt more than full forehand strokes … probably rhs and lighter grip pressure on full strokes)
- rinse and repeat … if I remember correctly the number of sessions per week gradually increased. By nine months all pain was gone including serving as long as I didn’t put poly back in racquet. I was past pain, but apparently have a degraded elbow load max which doesn’t allow poly.
I look at all that and think we should probably say probably a lot more in our TE advice.
My elbow will be ok through the pickleball years … probably.
ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
that's a long post long of the short of it is you have a serious case of TE it's lunacy to not take extended rest, if you have a more mild case maybe you don't need a ton of time off.To begin with I’m not nearly as certain about any of this than you appear to be. When I got my bad TE (9 months before I could play tennis matches) I read everything I could find on TE because I was scared of losing my lifetime game. One thing that stood out doing my research … everyone including the medical and science communities have more questions than answers regarding TE and tendon injury.
Pretty sure brother Bob (@happyandbob ) was addressing the “just take a year off and do nothing else“ thinking with the “rest won’t cure TE”. The general consensus for a long time was the early injury … say two weeks … was a key time for rest because you could turn tendonitis (temporary) into tendinopathy (chronic). I actually read recent research where some are starting to think this is actually wrong. The thinking was we all have constant pockets of tendon damage as the normal cycle, but the strong parts cover it. By the time you think you have early TE, you have already been in tendinopathy cycle. In PT, some call it “treat the donut not the hole”.
Anyway, we should use the word “probably” a lot more when giving TE advice. For example in my interaction with fellow ttw TE sufferers at the time of my TE, all of these happened to ttw members:
- took two weeks off, no changes or PT, no problem returning to tennis
- took a year off, no changes or PT, no problem returning to tennis
- took a year off, no changes or PT, TE came back returning to tennis
- played through TE, turned it into a 2-3 year injury
- took two weeks off, then started green flexbar, soon after that starting light hitting with ball machine, hit nothing with sharp pain (which only happened with serves and forehands even though pain was at lateral epicondyle), backhands didn’t hurt at all, forehands became better and better with ball machine sessions, pretty much 9 months until could serve
That last one was me … all of this to make the point not all TE is the same, and as much as we want a cookie cutter solution and answers … there will be a degree of guessing.
For me … I didn’t want to be that guy that took an entire year off only to still have a fubared elbow. So I made a plan … filled with guessing:
1) take the two weeks off … might have been a little more … seemed like logical choice for the insurance of initial healing
2) massage and green flexbar
3) can’t remember exact time off before hitting ball machine ... but let’s say 2 months
Ball machine session rules:
- sharp pain, stop hitting that stroke immediately and try in future ball machine sessions
- moderate discomfort ok … unless pain the next day (didn’t happen, was either sharp pain hitting or ok next day)
- so hit mainly backhands and full baseline forehands at first (forehand volleys hurt more than full forehand strokes … probably rhs and lighter grip pressure on full strokes)
- rinse and repeat … if I remember correctly the number of sessions per week gradually increased. By nine months all pain was gone including serving as long as I didn’t put poly back in racquet. I was past pain, but apparently have a degraded elbow load max which doesn’t allow poly.
I look at all that and think we should probably say probably a lot more in our TE advice.
My elbow will be ok through the pickleball years … probably.
that said the person who started this thread has had TE for a year and for whatever reason won't take time off and just comes back here to post wondering why it's not getting better. i'm frustrated just reading the posts.
ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
Short version:
how long off? when to start pt? when can you hit balls? matches? metrics/test for stages?
Long version … you knew there would be one.
But depending how you define “extended rest” … I didn’t take extended rest. I took a short rest, then along with flexbar pt I included ball machine pt. That’s my point … I’m not advocating no rest, I’m advocating it’s not as simple as saying rest, you still have to pick how much rest and what pt? Rest for how many months … how do you know it’s enough … how do you know TE won’t come right back after x months rest?
One could say I took extended rest from matches, and that would be true. But … if I didn’t have sharp pain playing matches not sure if I would have, or should have taken off x months from matches.
That is the hideous part … we just don’t know.
Take my case for example … I think a couple of outcomes were possible from starting to hit balls at 2 months:
- I could have turned my bad injury into a worse injury … possibly surgery
- I actually guessed my way into the best recovery I was ever going to have … from severe pain on serves to a full summer of singles with full out serves and groundstrokes with zero pain with a Volkl V1 Pro / Head Velocity 16g @52lbs (my TE was bad enough the wrong choice potentially could have ended my tennis)
- it would have worked out the same with 9 months off with green flexbar
That is actually one of the unknowns when you get past TE while doing some form of pt … you never know in your particular case of TE if rest alone would have got you to same place.
This Is exactly correct! I would categorize my case as mild, but persistent. The biggest mystery for mine is why it’s taking this long to go away completely and how sometimes I can play tennis and it’s fine and other times it is not and as I’ve stated it never hurts while playing unless I’m playing during a flareup . I did take the two weeks off at the beginning and then I took five weeks off this past November & it felt fine so I slowly phased back into tennis. I agree the biggest issue is not knowing how much time to take off and what that magic number is because here I’ve been fine for two months while playing, and now it came back, so it’s not easy to just say rest because no one knows how long to rest. And no doctor can tell us that either.Short version:
how long off? when to start pt? when can you hit balls? matches? metrics/test for stages?
Long version … you knew there would be one.
But depending how you define “extended rest” … I didn’t take extended rest. I took a short rest, then along with flexbar pt I included ball machine pt. That’s my point … I’m not advocating no rest, I’m advocating it’s not as simple as saying rest, you still have to pick how much rest and what pt? Rest for how many months … how do you know it’s enough … how do you know TE won’t come right back after x months rest?
One could say I took extended rest from matches, and that would be true. But … if I didn’t have sharp pain playing matches not sure if I would have, or should have taken off x months from matches.
That is the hideous part … we just don’t know.
Take my case for example … I think a couple of outcomes were possible from starting to hit balls at 2 months:
- I could have turned my bad injury into a worse injury … possibly surgery
- I actually guessed my way into the best recovery I was ever going to have … from severe pain on serves to a full summer of singles with full out serves and groundstrokes with zero pain with a Volkl V1 Pro / Head Velocity 16g @52lbs (my TE was bad enough the wrong choice potentially could have ended my tennis)
- it would have worked out the same with 9 months off with green flexbar
That is actually one of the unknowns when you get past TE while doing some form of pt … you never know in your particular case of TE if rest alone would have got you to same place.
ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
Judging by my lottery picks I am terrible at magic numbers.
The variation might be the balls and mishits in a match/drill/lesson. Nothing is worse than ball machine sessions with balls that should be replaced.
EggSalad
Hall of Fame
yossarian
Professional
Incorrect
EggSalad
Hall of Fame
Tennis elbow - Symptoms and causes
www.mayoclinic.org
“Tennis elbow is when the tissue connecting the forearm muscle to the elbow, called tendons, becomes irritated or inflamed.”
yossarian
Professional
OutdatedTennis elbow - Symptoms and causes
“Tennis elbow is when the tissue connecting the forearm muscle to the elbow, called tendons, becomes irritated or inflamed.”
When people are symptomatic, especially with a chronic tendon issue, there is an absence of inflammatory markers. The pain is no longer due to inflammation
there's a subjective element obv. but generally people know how bad it is based on how their arm feels, also if a case lasted a year off and on I'd consider that severe no matter how bad the pain was. At that point i'd take 4-6 months off. I'd start hitting against a wall at 4 months maybe if my arm felt good and do that for a bit and see how my arm responded. then move to just hitting lightly with someone and progress to more competitive play eventually. could someone come back sooner, maybe in some cases. But I'd err on the side of caution as coming back too soon just starts things all over again, and this is coming from someone who is obsessed with tennis. have to play the long game. if the poster had done this from the beginning they'd prob be fine by now. Continue to use flexbar even after it's healed. my last case was about 5 years ago, still use it pretty regularly.Short version:
how long off? when to start pt? when can you hit balls? matches? metrics/test for stages?
Long version … you knew there would be one.
But depending how you define “extended rest” … I didn’t take extended rest. I took a short rest, then along with flexbar pt I included ball machine pt. That’s my point … I’m not advocating no rest, I’m advocating it’s not as simple as saying rest, you still have to pick how much rest and what pt? Rest for how many months … how do you know it’s enough … how do you know TE won’t come right back after x months rest?
One could say I took extended rest from matches, and that would be true. But … if I didn’t have sharp pain playing matches not sure if I would have, or should have taken off x months from matches.
That is the hideous part … we just don’t know.
Take my case for example … I think a couple of outcomes were possible from starting to hit balls at 2 months:
- I could have turned my bad injury into a worse injury … possibly surgery
- I actually guessed my way into the best recovery I was ever going to have … from severe pain on serves to a full summer of singles with full out serves and groundstrokes with zero pain with a Volkl V1 Pro / Head Velocity 16g @52lbs (my TE was bad enough the wrong choice potentially could have ended my tennis)
- it would have worked out the same with 9 months off with green flexbar
That is actually one of the unknowns when you get past TE while doing some form of pt … you never know in your particular case of TE if rest alone would have got you to same place.
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ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
Tennis elbow - Symptoms and causes
“Tennis elbow is when the tissue connecting the forearm muscle to the elbow, called tendons, becomes irritated or inflamed.”
It seems the general current consensus is tendon injuries are a bit different. For one … low blood flow, so at a minimum a completely different inflammation issue.
I liked this guy’s writing on TE … at a minimum points out “no one knows much”. He talks about inflammation early in this article:
Tennis Elbow: What works? What doesn’t? And why?
The science of elbow and forearm pain caused by overuse, usually at work (not tennis). All treatment options reviewed.
www.painscience.com
fyi … @yossarian is PT … he lives this while we talk about it
ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
My understanding of PT is typically it isn’t wait until healed to start. They have hip replacement patients load bearing day of, or day after surgery. So we have to ask … is tendon injury different enough to where wait x months is the best approach. The answer could be yes … medical and science community doesn’t appear to be able to tell us for sure. Someone with bad TE could limit their potential healing by waiting x months … we all want to know what x is for our TE and we are pulling it out of our butts.
So I would take your “hit off a wall after 4 months” and go try earlier. Actually I would try shadow swings before I leave the house … any sharp pain I don’t leave the house. If first hit off the wall is sharp pain, I go home before 2nd hit. My guess is we won’t do more damage gently testing the hitting waters … and hitting PT is what we are trying to get back to (hitting).
I continue the massage to avoid new injury, but only pull out green flexbar if I feel a twinge. I’ve always viewed the flexbar eccentric exercise as healing and not preventative … but you would think you get increased load bearing from it. Not sure … but at this point brief massage before play has kept the elbow demons away.
happyandbob
Legend
My PT used a metal tool to grind out by elbow at every session. It was super painful at first, but was less and less each week as I did the flexbar and massage at home. My TE was so bad I couldn't even hold a coffee cup and shaking someone's hand was excruciating.
For home, along with the flexbar I bought one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IWJDYP4 and used the same motions to mimic the PT treatment like this
Now I proactively do flexbar a few times a week and massage gun my elbow and forearm before and after tennis. I'm 54 and have worked poly back into the rotation in an Ezone 100, still TE free.
you could try that approach, depends on how bad your TE is. if you're not feeling any pain at all light wall hitting could be ok to try. but again if in doubt i prefer to lean on the side of caution, i'd rather come back too late rather than too early only b/c from my experience if you come back too early and you're wrong things kinda reset and you could be back to the beginning. flexbar can definitely be used as preventative, helps to strengthen the tendons.
ByeByePoly
G.O.A.T.
whoa … and I thought my TE was bad. I avoided shaking hands long before my TE … but I’m never giving up coffee even if I have to use a straw.
So … you will scrape for poly.
That plastic must have entered your bloodstream and reached your very large brain.
