Top 2 Tennis Elbow Pain Relief Exercises
Today we’re talking about Tennis Elbow pain relief exercises.
Elbow pain is often called Tennis Elbow or, more technically, lateral epicondylitis. Despite the name, you don’t actually have to be a tennis player to suffer from the pain of Tennis Elbow.
What is tennis elbow?
The most recent research shows Tennis Elbow, or pain on the outside of the elbow, is the result of overused muscles causing tendon fiber dysregulation as opposed to being an issue of inflammation in the area. (Thus a more appropriate name would actually be lateral epicondylosis.)
Tennis elbow is related to wrist extension. You extend your wrist when you bend your wrist back, fingers pointing up (for contrast, wrist flexion is when you bend your wrist down and your hand down and in).
Limited wrist extension can lead to overworking the extensor muscle and cause that tennis elbow pain.
In order to tap into that tendon and start to load it in a passive and gentle way, we want to begin by stretching and mobilizing the extensors. The following practices activate the extensors in an eccentric manner in order to relieve pressure.
It’s also important to consider the mobility in the wrist. If you’re finding that your wrist has a limited range of mobility, check out my post and video on how to improve your wrist extension.
Wrist extensor exercise 1
Come down onto the ground or mat in a kneeling position. Flip your wrists forward (so the back of your hand is on the ground) and come on top of the wrist. Keep in mind that the wrist is a sensitive part of the body, so you want to approach these exercises gently and slowly!
Keep the elbows straight as you lean back into a sitting posture with your glutes making contact with your heels. If this is a bit too intense stay in a tabletop position. While you’ll feel sensation, focus on finding this with relaxation – you want to avoid any tension (because that’s taking away the whole point of the exercise.)
Relax the fingers, relax the shoulders, and hold this stretch for at least 30 breaths or two minutes. Really focus on breathing into the stretch, relaxing, and releasing.
You can rotate the elbows into pronation and supination (twisting them in and out) and see what feels good. Again, stay mindful. Avoid all tension and pain here.
Wrist extensor exercise 2 for tennis elbow pain relief
After two minutes, turn your hands so that the fingers are facing each other. Using strength from the upper body, elevate the back of the wrist off the ground and come onto the knuckles. Remember: slow and gentle. Then come down slowly as your release eccentrically.
You’ll do 5-10 of these reps. Pay attention to your physical sensations. If it hurts, engage more of your upper body strength.
After you’ve completed those reps, come back into the stretch from the first part of this series. You can also extend your arm in front of you, fingers pointed down, and press your into your opposite hand, creating a stretch. You can also do this gentle exercise during the day to find some release!
The goal is to create tension release on a consistent basis, relieve pressure, relieve the tendon, and gently start to load the tendon so you can start to heal.
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