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Update: Golfer's Elbow healing nicely!


Allan Dillon
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Allan Dillon

5/13/2014 Update: So ever since the 28th of April my golfer's elbow in both arms has been on the road to recovery. I began my old less physical job (still a little labor intensive but easy in comparison) on the 3rd of May. I've been doing a lot of stretching which I'll go into more detail below. My main annoyance with my golfer's elbow aside from the pain was that my medial epicondyle would "pop" or more accurately "slide" out of place when either arm would go into extension. I didn't like that feeling whatsoever. However, After attempting the stretch below and performing it to the best of my ability I feel that it has helped tremendously. My medial epicondyle doesn't pop/slide off track nearly as much anymore if at all. Now, since folks here have a better physiological understanding of the musculoskeletal system than myself, I'd like for someone to read my theory on why this fixed my popping/sliding issue of my medial epicondyle.

 

My theory: After overloading my forearm flexors and biceps by repeating flexion upon flexion movement of the arms by carrying and lifting boxes of various weight 50-60 hrs. a week at a fast pace, the front of my arms got chronically tight due to pattern overload thus pulling or causing my medial epicondyle to become off track. Although I'm not too familiar with the anatomy of the elbow, I feel this is why the stretch was such a tremendous help, because it assisted in undoing all that flexion by forcing my arms to straighten. Is this correct? Also before I came across the stretch I posted below in the article I was doing a lot of stretching that you usually see recommended for GE where you place your palm flat against a wall in front of you and straighten your arm. I feel this helped slightly but was ineffective because I feel that the origin of my issue was more so from tight biceps not tight forearm flexors although that I'm sure still played a role in GE. Also I noticed during the stretch that my hands would be forced to rotate away from each other (over-supination I guess you'd call it?) to lie flat against the floor. I didn't have much flexibility here but I managed. Do you think this helped too? Or maybe it was more of an isometric exernal rotator cuff exercise since I had to keep my elbow pits toward the floor to maintain extension of my arm? Cool stuff!

 

As I've said, I still have to participate in the same activity that caused GE in the first place, but I'm doing my best to take it easy, still holding off and recovering further until I do pullups/rows etc. again, but I'm recovering so I'm doing the right thing right? I also perform tissue massage around the medial epicondyle to the best of my ability with my thumb, and it seems to help. Sorry that this was a long update, it's just this physiological aspect of the human body really fascinates me. I love learning how the body functions, operates, recovers, etc. It's so cool. Also I wanted to share my method of recovery and how I was doing so far with the results for any other GE sufferers out there. Thank you for reading and the advice GB community! :)

 

Okay, so after more research I persisted on finding out how to fix my GE, then I came across a rock-climbing blog where the guy showed a stretch that cured his GE. However, I'm having some trouble getting into this stretch. I will post the article below (can I do that?) which will show the stretch.

 

http://tomrandallclimbing.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/golfers-elbow-a-possible-solution/

 

Two issues I'm having are:

 

1. My head seems to get in the way and makes this very uncomfortable for my neck as it gets crammed in the back. I think this is due to not being able to draw my arms close enough to the center of my body because my chest gets in the way.

 

2. I can't figure out how to get in that position. I tried rolling onto my arms but it just seems like it throws my arms out of the position where I had them.

 

After attempting the stretch and discovering the issues above, my elbows did feel instantly better. So from this I think that although it rooted from overuse of my forearm flexors, maybe this is more so a flexibility issue? This stretch showed better results than just stretching my forearm flexors by themselves. Two other issues I think could be playing a role is that I feel that my biceps are too tight, and my external rotators of the arm are too weak versus the internal rotators. Something tells me that rotator cuff work would help this greatly although I'm not sure why. I don't quite understand the relation of the rotator cuff and the elbow, but I've read that issues with the elbow can stem from issues at the shoulder. Any help would be so much appreciated. Thank you guys!

 

P.S. I also did finally quit that warehouse job after making some financial sacrifices a little over a week ago and I went back to my old job where box-carrying is still the main part of the job, but it's way more flexible in terms of the constant workload. So I can take it a lot easier there and hope to recover. I never developed GE working there.

 

Thanks again GB community! Sorry this post came out longer than I expected.

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Allan Dillon

That variation of Shalbhasana (Locust) will help.

That pose looks like I'd still have trouble with neck flexibility. I felt like my neck was way too hyper-extended and my chin was even pressing in the floor really hard.

P.S. I also bought a cold/heat pack yesterday to aid in my recovery. Which would be best for healing golfer's elbow? Heat or cold?

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Douglas Wadle

contrast therapy is best. Cold, heat, cold, heat, etc. always end with heat. 5-10 mins. each. Looks like a good stretch. I just tried it. it seems fairly easy to get into position. if your neck is strained, just look down at the ground with your forehead in contact with the ground.

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Allan Dillon

Awesome! I actually bought a hot/cold clay pack the other day. I'll buy another so I can alternate hot and cold. How many times a day should I do this? Also I'm glad you told me to try contrast therapy. I wasn't sure which cold or hot treatment would be optimal for this type of injury, but both sound good. :)

P.S. Wow.. Oops. I didn't notice I already mentioned the hot/cold pack.

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