Outer elbow tendon issue…

I’ve been struggling for 2months now with an outer elbow tendinitis problem.  Lots of cracking and popping going on and random pain depending on movement of elbow joint.  I’ve been getting mixed feedback on what exactly is the correct way to heal the injury. It doesn’t seem to hurt when I climb, but I’m wondering if that’s putting more pressure on the tendons making them tighter?  One PT gave me a few exercises, but they don’t seem to be doing much  any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much MP crew.

See an orthopedist. PTs are lower on the medical food chain than an MD.

I struggled with lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) for about 16 months, and it was pretty miserable. It's a very common issue with climbers that aren't giving their tendons enough time to recover between sessions. Warming up the tendons before climbing is very important, as well as stretching both the lateral & medial forearm tendons daily. 

I never experienced lots of "cracking and popping" (unless I straightened my arm and flexed), so I have no idea if lateral epicondylitis is what you're experiencing or not. There are some general tests you can do to see if that's what your issue is however:

1. Stretch the offending arm out straight with your palm facing the ground. Place the hand of your other arm on top (back) of the hand of your bad arm, and then try to pull you bad hand up & back while pushing against the movement with your good arm/hand. If you feel pain in the lateral part of your elbow, then that is a good sign you've got tennis elbow.

2. Does lifting a cup of coffee normally hurt? May be tennis elbow

3. Another good test. With your bad arm/hand, Lift a cup with a "claw" formation of your hand with your fingers spread out around the lip of the cup and squeeze relatively hard. While squeezing, start with your arm straight, lift the cup up, and then bend your elbow so that you're bringing the cup towards your chest. If this is painful, then you might have tennis elbow.

I am not a doctor of any kind, and this is based on my own experience with the issue.

In general, getting blood to the area with low weight, very high reps (60 to 100) with pain staying 2 out of 10 or less works for me.

i think zottman curls have really helped me. i do 3x5 and high intensity.

What did the doctor say about it? 

The Theraband Flexbar was the most useful rehab tool for me.

Crimping is what aggravated it the most while climbing. If you cock your wrist back when you apply force on handholds, you are putting stress on the tendon.

IMO, you should probably stop climbing and just rehab until all of your symptoms go away and then wait that same period of time again before you restart climbing and whatever other activities that caused your tendinopathy.  Rehab will not be successful if you keep reinjuring the tendon.

Max Thompson wrote:

I’ve been struggling for 2months now with an outer elbow tendinitis problem.  Lots of cracking and popping going on and random pain depending on movement of elbow joint.  I’ve been getting mixed feedback on what exactly is the correct way to heal the injury. It doesn’t seem to hurt when I climb, but I’m wondering if that’s putting more pressure on the tendons making them tighter?  One PT gave me a few exercises, but they don’t seem to be doing much  any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much MP crew.

Max, 

I had a resurgence of the same tendon issue - outer right elbow - pop up last November. I hit the rehab from a few different angles initially, acupuncture, dry-needling, PT, etc... but I think the thing that truly got me healed was a procedure called "ultrasound-guided needle fenestration". You can read about it here - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23487340/ 

I was back climbing between 6/7 weeks and at grade, pain-free by 3 months. I also went to a chiropractor to help make minor adjustments to neck/shoulder/back weaknesses that probably caused me to put too much stress on my tendon in the first place. Since then, I've adjusted my climbing sessions slightly to include more rest and warm-up/cool-down but that's maybe because I'm old or out of a healthy fear that it will flare-up again. 

Hope this at least adds a data point for you. Good luck. 

Lee

(edit - also a lot of the above recommendations on stretching, flexbar, etc... is now part of my daily stretch routine)

Avram Neal wrote:

I struggled with lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) for about 16 months, and it was pretty miserable. It's a very common issue with climbers that aren't giving their tendons enough time to recover between sessions. Warming up the tendons before climbing is very important, as well as stretching both the lateral & medial forearm tendons daily. 

I never experienced lots of "cracking and popping" (unless I straightened my arm and flexed), so I have no idea if lateral epicondylitis is what you're experiencing or not. There are some general tests you can do to see if that's what your issue is however:

1. Stretch the offending arm out straight with your palm facing the ground. Place the hand of your other arm on top (back) of the hand of your bad arm, and then try to pull you bad hand up & back while pushing against the movement with your good arm/hand. If you feel pain in the lateral part of your elbow, then that is a good sign you've got tennis elbow.

2. Does lifting a cup of coffee normally hurt? May be tennis elbow

3. Another good test. With your bad arm/hand, Lift a cup with a "claw" formation of your hand with your fingers spread out around the lip of the cup and squeeze relatively hard. While squeezing, start with your arm straight, lift the cup up, and then bend your elbow so that you're bringing the cup towards your chest. If this is painful, then you might have tennis elbow.

I am not a doctor of any kind, and this is based on my own experience with the issue.

Thanks everyone for all the helpful feedback. Working on rehab.