Tennis Elbow success stories?

I successfully rehabbed elbow pain on the lateral aspect of my elbow! …and then it seemingly moved to the medial, lol! I’m taking a break from the gym routes, they seem to hammer my elbow and caused the latest flare on a day I had no oomph but tried pushing it anyway. I’ve got a multi-day climbing trip I’m trying to rest up for.

Generally, rest, rehab exercises, and a progressive return to activity has helped my usual tendon issues. Like others, the kind of climbing i generally do outdoors doesn’t seem to irritate the elbow as much.

Hi Avram,

I'm sorry to hear about your struggles with your elbow. That diagnosis can be tricky and has a long road to recovery, but conservative management with physical therapy is the best course of treatment to get back to what you want to do. As mentioned many times in this thread, not all medical providers have the knowledge of what climbing requires however they can be great resources to get you started on your track to recovery. The advice and exercises you've already been given seem to be a great start. It may be time to start progressing your rehab exercises further if you've been doing the same thing for several months. I am a doctor of physical therapy and when treating this condition it is essential to keep progressively loading the tendons by increasing weight, or time under tension (think slow reps) to get them strong enough to handle the stress they are put under while climbing. It's a long road but in my experience, I have seen this to lead to success for every person that is willing to dedicate themselves to the treatments.  While you stated you're not looking for advice, I'm going to include an article from The Climbing Doctor about treating tennis elbow specifically for climbers in the hopes that this will help you continue to progress. This article was written by Jared Vagy, a doctor of physical therapy that specializes in climbing.

https://theclimbingdoctor.com/a-complete-program-for-climbing-lateral-elbow-pain/

In addition to what is included in the article, managing recovery is essential to treating this condition (and optimizing climbing performance in general). Be sure to get quality sleep 8-9 hours if possible. Try to limit inflammatory foods in your diet if possible (such as red meats, alcohol, and processed sugars and carbs). 

Don't hesitate to reach out with any additional questions. Keep up the great work and you'll get where you want to be!

Put me down as another success story.  Strangely, I didn't see anyone in the preceding 5 pages who brought on their tennis elbow by using an improper tool for 3 hours to do ice maintenance on their home climbing tower (is it just me?). In retrospect, had I not applied my elbow to the ice, I wouldn't have had to apply ice to my elbow!

Mine lasted a little over 1.5 years and I underwent several months of PT.  I found that the best medicine was 1) trying to avoid things that were particularly painful (either exercises or everyday movements, like pulling out a chair from a table) and using one of those pressure straps when exercising; 2) Time/patience; and 3) Heavy deadlifts (no straps, taxing the grip big time).  The last one was really surprising and counterintuitive, but it was amazing how it provided relief that lasted for a couple of days after lifting.  I'm happy to say that the pain and irritation eventually got less and less, until one day I found myself realizing that I hadn't had any pain in several weeks - I was cured!

Put me down as a success story. It started on the right side, took about 18 months to fix between the eccentrics and the arm aid. While rehabbing the right side I also strengthened the left side. Later when it appeared on the left side it took just a few months of working on it and it went away. Mine was the pronator teres variety and I mostly followed the eccentric dumbel lowers while increasing the angle on the arm to fully extended. It seems the strength required to get it better is WAY more than the strength to keep it away, once gone. I was doing the dumbel lowers with almost 40 lbs. 6 to 8 reps and 2-3 sets, 3x to 5x a week. Now I do 2x a week of 2 sets with about 30 lbs both arms.

This thread has been very encouraging. I started climbing about 6 months ago, fell in love with it and spent 4-5 days in the gym through the winter. No surprise, but now my left elbow (and right to a lesser extent) have medial pain. I started doing the rotational eccentric exercises I found though Dr. Saunders. I've dropped my gym volume to half and stay on routes 2-3 grades under my ability, and avoid movement that irritates the elbow. I've only had the pain for a short time, so I'm hoping that my taking it seriously right from the get go will yield positive results in a reasonable timeframe. Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. 

I've had sucess with strength training too. Doing nothing made it worse. Lifting heavy weights somehow cleared it up.

Shepido wrote:

I mostly followed the eccentric dumbel lowers while increasing the angle on the arm to fully extended. It seems the strength required to get it better is WAY more than the strength to keep it away, once gone. I was doing the dumbel lowers with almost 40 lbs. 6 to 8 reps and 2-3 sets, 3x to 5x a week. Now I do 2x a week of 2 sets with about 30 lbs both arms.

This bit is interesting. I've had a bit of elbow tendonitis (medial epicondylitis) in both arms the last few months. I've got it pretty well managed with the dumbbell lowers and it isn't interfering with climbing too much, though still avoiding big round font-style slopers that aggravate it. But it's not totally going away. I'm currently doing the dumbbell lowers with 25 lbs, 12 reps, 3 sets, 4-5x per week. Also doing the hammer rotations (at a lower weight, of course).

Looking for how to get the elbows from 90% better to 100%. Based on your experience, I might try lowering the reps and increasing the weight to see if that helps break through the current recover plateau.

NIGHT HAWK wrote:

I've had sucess with strength training too. Doing nothing made it worse. Lifting heavy weights somehow cleared it up.

What lifts were you doing, and did any in particular seem more or less relevant? 

How much forearm stretching are you guys doing? Did you buy the therabar yet??

These are simple things that can make a difference in 30 days. 

I've managed to rehab my way through elbow tendonitis and bicep tendonitis a couple times now, in my experience once you get to the cause it should clear up pretty quickly, if it's lingering for a year or more you are probably not addressing the actual cause...

I didn't get any real relief from the therabar, it kept pain to a manageable level but didn't improve things long term, wave tool took care of elbow pain in about 2 weeks once I found the right spot, same with bicep, it took a while to find the trigger but once released the pain was 100% gone in a couple weeks, heavy bench and other oppositional exercises keep it away...

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned on this thread that has almost instantly cured a couple friends tendonitis is increasing protein intake, especially if you are vegan/vegetarian, not sure what the mechanism is but anecdotally it has worked wonders when nothing else was doing anything...

Harry Manback wrote:

What lifts were you doing, and did any in particular seem more or less relevant? 

Bicep curls, forearm wrist lifts and triceps extensions.

NIGHT HAWK wrote:

Bicep curls, forearm wrist lifts and triceps extensions.

Cool. Thanks!

NIGHT HAWK wrote:

Bicep curls, forearm wrist lifts and triceps extensions.

Sounds like you were suffering from triceps tendonitis.  Is that correct?  

Inner Elbow Pain

Lateral Elbow Pain

Chad Miller wrote:

Sounds like you were suffering from triceps tendonitis.  Is that correct?  

Inner Elbow Pain

Lateral Elbow Pain

it was outer elbow pain.

NIGHT HAWK wrote:

it was outer elbow pain.

Thanks!  Where was it in relation to the elbow?  

JCM wrote:

This bit is interesting. I've had a bit of elbow tendonitis (medial epicondylitis) in both arms the last few months. I've got it pretty well managed with the dumbbell lowers and it isn't interfering with climbing too much, though still avoiding big round font-style slopers that aggravate it. But it's not totally going away. I'm currently doing the dumbbell lowers with 25 lbs, 12 reps, 3 sets, 4-5x per week. Also doing the hammer rotations (at a lower weight, of course).

Looking for how to get the elbows from 90% better to 100%. Based on your experience, I might try lowering the reps and increasing the weight to see if that helps break through the current recover plateau.

I upped the weight and lowered the reps based on Dodgy Elbows Revisted, by Dr. Julian Sanders. His protocols top out at 8 reps for the Pronator Teres variety I had.

Chad Miller wrote:

Thanks!  Where was it in relation to the elbow?  

in that little divot on the elbow bone. I wacked it walking through a doorway and it stayed inflamed for a year turning into tennis elbow..

NIGHT HAWK wrote:

in that little divot on the elbow bone. I wacked it walking through a doorway and it stayed inflamed for a year turning into tennis elbow..

Sounds like an inflammation of the busa.  Brutial.  Glad it calmed down.  

Avram Neal wrote:

Quick update. It took 14-15 months, and the pain is mostly gone now. Gets slightly flared up when climbing hard, or if I sleep on it wrong. But I'd say it's 90-95% better than it was at its worst. 

Daily pushups to exhaustion, and wrist extension exercises felt like the key to me. I still do them every day. I also warm up the tendons before I climb religiously, and always start on an easy route before I try something hard.

Thanks again everyone in this thread for your advice, and words of encouragement.

Sorry to bump thread, but just wanted to give an update.

I'd say it's 99% gone at this point. Every once in a while after a hard climbing session I'll sort of feel it a bit the next day, but doing pushups / wrist extension exercises seems to knock it out quick.

For those that are suffering with this injury, do not give up hope! Be patient! 

I had it on and off for 6 years despite massages, strength training, and stretching.  Granted my approach was not terribly scientific.  

It disappeared within two months when I started going to a climbing workout class that emphasized stabilizers.  So, instead of a simple pressing motion (image a standard bench press), we would use things such as bars full of water that forced us to stabilize hard while pushing.  Another technique was hanging weights of off slings on the ends of the bar while bench pressing.  I was shocked at how quickly it went away.