Tennis Elbow success stories?
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Train antagonist, use your thumb when gripping, and train your extensors. I’ve had both and they went away immediately (literally in a couple days) once I stopped only training for climbing and did the above. |
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grug g wrote: I already started daily pushups (I didn't ask PT as I figured they can't really hurt at this point). I also started using the flex bar again, in addition to my regular exercise routine. Seeing my PT and going to go over everyone's suggestions in this thread with him. Thanks everyone. |
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i struggled with elbow tendonitis. I did the bands, the bars, the stretches--anything i could find--but it would always come back with weighted pullups or steep climbing. Turns out I have bone spurs on my elbows (and my heels too i bet). I found out when one of the bone spurs snapped off while climbing. Do you have any family history of bone spurs? |
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+1 for the Thera-dong flex bar blue. Tyler twist. Google it. Many years as climber and window cleaner with elbow issues. Swear by it. |
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Re: Michael Palmer - No bone spurs in my family that I'm aware of. I'm 38 and I've never had any issues in my arms like this until I discovered climbing and started pushing myself in the gym. Update: Since I've added pushups and flex bar, arm has been a bit more sore/stiff/achy in general. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. |
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Avram Neal wrote: Recommendation to not go from 0 push ups and 0 therabar ---> daily 100 push ups and daily 100 therabar. Ease into it and slowly ramp over time. Patience is KEY for this type of injury. |
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Pushups worked for me, the flex bar didn't. I now do pushups regularly as part of my warm up. I've not had an issue in 4 years. |
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Mine wasn't as bad as you are describing, however, I have had Total success with this. Theraband Flexbar (green). ARMAID. I kept my therband with me religiously and used it between every climb, during the warmup, and at the end. The worse the pain, the more time I spent on the bar, vs rock. Then you wean off it asI you recover. The exercises with the bar should provide resistance opposite to what you feel climbing. You probably already know this. Then Armaid every day. If you have it reallly really bad, instead of climbing, I'd use the weight assist pull up machine to load the tendon instead of climbing :( Total success with this after lots of experimentation. I had medial in the right arm, and lateral on the left so this really worked for both. |
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What worked for me was heat, then vigorous (painful) massage of the area. The elbow doc said new data showed that heat promotes healing to the area. (The affected area has very poor blood flow, which impedes healing.) After 2 years of terrible pain in both elbows (couldn’t lift a carton of milk), lots of docs, useless PT, therabands, stretching…pretty much everything discussed upthread—mine cleared right up and hasn’t returned. Edited to add: icing was recommended by just about everyone. I did ice baths every night for 2 years…no change. |
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grug g wrote: Ya, I started at 20 pushups per day. Now I'm at 30-40 after about a week. Thanks for the advice. For the therabar twist stuff, I'm just been doing it while I watch TV until I "feel" like I've done it enough. Haven't really been counting. |
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Jim Lawyer wrote: this is good advice. i have used this for other injuries with success. i believe the rationale is that if scar tissue exists in the injured area, the massage helps to break it up so that you can then retrain it into functional tissue |
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Ice is appropriate if the condition is acute, within the first few days. Most climbers are dealing with a tendinopathy (chronic scar from repeated overuse) not an acute tendinitis. Heat is very helpful with tendinopathy. |
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Owen Wilkins wrote: Ice is appropriate if the condition is acute, within the first few days. Most climbers are dealing with a tendinopathy (chronic scar from repeated overuse) not an acute tendinitis. Heat is very helpful with tendinopathy. It's difficult to break up scar tissue with just massage. That's where you need an edge tool to really help break down the unhealthy scar. The Wave Tool excels with this and even has arcs specifically for the elbow and fingers for climbers. |
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Avram Neal wrote: I cured mine forever with the advice given by Steve Ilg a fitness trainer from Boulder. You do a barbell exercise he calls a “modified Frenchey”. |
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Guy Keesee wrote: Why bother posting something like this if you don't plan to share? Let's hear what the Frenchey is |
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UHXpMPQ4sNM&feature=emb_logo This worked for me |
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Re: Heat / Massage / Wavetool advice I'm starting a weekly graston routine with my PT starting tomorrow. |
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grug g wrote: Cause I’m busy…. Ilg is a trainer from Boulder. Has written several books on fitness. His cure- that worked for me and a friend is this. Being a boomer- as I’ve been called- leaves me with shitty googling skills. I remember this exercise quite clearly because I read about it and it really really worked for me. I hope Avram finds it helpful. |
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Re: Guy Keesee Wow, that sounds intense! This is the first I've read anything like this. Very informative. I'm going to show my PT and see what he thinks. Looks like a very time consuming workout, but worth it if it works... Would probably be something to at least try before surgery, if everything else fails. How many times per week would you go through that routine? Thanks. |
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Avram Neal wrote: My friend and I would do Arms 2 times per week and legs 1 time. Each week we reversed the work out. So do the exercise after arms. We would do 3 month regimen during the winter. Improvement occurred after one winter season of workouts. The next year I spent the season climbing cracks and avoided crimping unless absolutely necessary. After 2nd year of work outs I could crimp down hard. I’m sure this helped me put that problem away forever. I’ve had several surgeries over the years, don’t say yes to it unless your surgeon knows exactly what is wrong with you. Have you had a MRI with contrast? What does doctor say? Good luck, having chronic pain sucks big time. |