How to Relieve Tennis Elbow and Golfer’s Elbow

Despite their names, tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow don’t just affect participants in those sports. Any number of activities can cause the painful swelling of the tendons in your elbow associated with these ailments. Thankfully, physical therapy can help relieve the pain and help you get back to your normal activities.

What are Tennis Elbow and Golfer’s Elbow?

The two disorders are related but affect different sides of the elbow.

Causes of Tennis Elbow

Tennis elbow specifically affects the tendons that attach the muscles in your lower arm to the knob on the outside of your elbow.

Repetitive motions can cause these tendons to become inflamed, causing pain in your elbow, often while using your wrist or hand.

While tennis is one of the activities that can inflame the tendons.

Other racket sports are also obviously also among the potential culprits, but certain jobs can also cause the condition.

These include carpenters, painters, butchers and plumbers.

Causes of golfer’s elbow

Unlike tennis elbow, which affects the tendons on the outside of the arm, golfer’s elbow is a tendinitis of the tendons on the inside of the elbow.

Along with the pain in your elbow, it can also cause some numbing or weakness in the affected muscles.

It can be caused by a variety of sports along with golf (it is also known as baseball elbow). Other activities, ranging from carrying a heavy suitcase to chopping wood with an axe can also inflame these tendons.

Physical Therapy for Tennis and Golfer’s Elbow

Mild cases of tennis and golfer’s elbow can often be solved with rest and icing the affecting area. For more severe cases, though, physical therapy may be called for.

The physical therapy for both will combine stretching and strengthening the muscles in your forearm.

Exercises used may include:

• Clenching something in your fist, as weakened grip strength is often one of the symptoms of these ailments.
• Wrist strengthening exercises, both flexion (lifting wrist with palm up) and extension (lifting wrist with palm down).
• Stretching your wrist and forearm.

Contact Us for Your Physical Therapy Needs

If you have been diagnosed with tennis or golfer’s elbow and are seeking physical therapy options, contact us at Comprehensive Rehab. We have offices in Clinton and Maquoketa.