Tennis Elbow

image from: http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/

Tennis elbow, the most common elbow injury is the rally an inflammation of the forearm and the tendon that connects the muscles to the bone in the elbow. These muscles are used to bend the wrist backward and to turn the palm face up. When the muscles and tendon become inflamed from overuse, you feel pain on the outside of your elbow (the lateral epicondyle). The pain is worse when you try to lift things with your palm facing down, so you may have trouble picking up a  things. Tennis elbow also causes pain when you rotate your hand in a clockwise direction, as you would in using a screwdriver or in screwing in a light bulb. You also will feel pain when you shake hands or hold a racquet or golf club. The pain may become so severe that it makes combing your hair virtually impossible.

Golfers also suffer from tennis elbow, but on the non-dominant side; a right-handed golfer will feel the pain in the left elbow. Pulling the club through the swing with the left wrist causes irritation in the left elbow. So a right-handed golfer who feels pain in the right arm or wrist is doing something terribly wrong during the swing.

A tennis player most often aggravates the elbow by hitting the ball late on a backhand swing. The backhand is an  especially difficult stroke to master. When hitting the ball with your weight on your back foot, you have to compensate by mostly using your arm and hitting late causes your elbow to be bent. You end up straining the forearm muscles and tendon. You also get tennis elbow by turning your wrist to put more spin on the serve.

Once your elbow becomes inflamed, everyday activities are enough to keep it irritated. Giving up your weekly tennis game to rest your elbow is not enough to solve the problem. Treating tennis elbow requires an exercise program to increase the strength and flexibility of the forearm muscles and tendon. One they are strong enough to withstand the stress of a backhand, the pain will go away and won’t return.