Patient question: What stretches are good for tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow?
We tend to look at such aches and pains as isolated to the area where we feel the pain.
For instance, if you have pain in your elbow, there must be something wrong with the elbow itself.
More often than not, unless you have a direct injury like a fall onto your elbow, what you’re dealing with is an elbow result, not an elbow problem.
You are one human made up of many interworking parts and relationships. We have amazing abilities to allow us to achieve numerous positions and perform countless activities.
However, through repetitive activities or exposure to physical and psychological stressors, we can unintentionally reduce or lose elements of our normal movement repertoire.
Instead of having all of our movement capabilities available to us, we only use or have access to a limited number of movement options which eventually results in increased tension, pressure, or load on certain areas of our body. If this situation persists, it can result in isolated areas of pain.
If we look at someone with elbow pain, we have a shoulder that can be limited in one direction, a forearm that may twist and follow the shoulder, but a hand that moves in the opposite direction. In this case, there may be an excessive strain on the inside of the elbow (often referred to as golfer’s elbow) or the outside of the elbow (often referred to as tennis elbow).
In many of these situations, gripping and lifting even the lightest of objects may feel weak or painful. Typical treatments may look at this situation in isolation resulting in a prescription of elbow and forearm stretches and strengthening exercises that are not only uncomfortable but not terribly useful in resolving the elbow pain.
More often than not, it is simply restoring the normal relationships between ALL of the joints and NOT just looking at the site of pain as the problem. The example below was achieved in a single treatment with an immediate resolution of elbow symptoms.
You are not just a body part. You are not a diagnosis. Your physical therapy evaluation should include ALL of you.
IFAST Physical therapy in Indianapolis offers a free injury consultation to allow you to experience the difference. We’ll help you understand how your body parts all work together, and where you may be lacking movement that keeps you happy, healthy and moving well. We can help.
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