Golfers Elbow, Tennis Elbow – What are they and what can you do to give THEM the elbow.

Firstly to better understand both Golf and Tennis Elbow we had better understand the anatomy of the forearm. In simple terms, if you held your arm out Infront of you palm down, all the muscles on your forearm on the top are your extensors and therefore all the muscles point towards the ground on the underside of your arm are the wrist flexors.

The wrist flexors are Brachioradialis, Flexor Carpi Radialis, Flexor Carpi Ulnaris, Palmaris Longus and there are some smaller muscles which predominantly control our fingers but which do help in flexion of the wrist. Sounds like a lot of muscles, right? Well, when you think about the fine motor control that we have over our hands and wrists they are pretty remarkable. We can contort our arms and hands into a wide range of movements so it stands to reason that we would have a large group of muscles to control all of this movement.

There are nearly as many extensors. These as we said before are the muscles on the opposing side of our arm. All of the muscles in our body work in pairs, if one contracts the other relaxes and vice versa. In fact, all our muscles are able to do IS contract and if there were no opposing muscles our movement would be something akin to a statue. Our wrist extensors are Extensor Carpi Radialis Longus, Extensor Carpi Radialis Brevis, Extensor Carpi Ulnaris, Extensor Digitorum and again there are some smaller muscles but I think you get the picture that between our flexors and extensors there are quite a lot of muscles in our forearms 20 of them to be precise.

When we are talking about Tennis elbow we are talking about inflammation of the extensor muscles, usually culminating in pain laterally or to the outside of our elbow. Where as Golfers Elbow is inflammation of the flexors resulting in discomfort to the medial side or inside of the elbow.

Its thought that a right handed golfer may cause some extra tension to their left arm by pulling the club through the swing with the left wrist. Where as Tennis elbow is more commonly caused by the player hitting a late backhand shot.

As we have discussed both Tennis and Golfers elbows are inflammatory issues. Personally, unless prescribed by a doctor I would always try to stay away from anti inflammatory medicine. Adhering to the PRICE protocol, (Protection, Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) or another similar method is a more preferable choice to me.

I would always advise clients with either issue to stop playing for the short term, let that inflammation reduce and work on some gentle mobility exercises such as gentle stretches. Eventually when deemed appropriate the idea would be to start some strength training to increase the muscles ability to deal with the extra load placed upon them during sport.

If you are suffering from either of these issues then please get in touch, I have been able to help many a golfer or tennis player getting back out onto the court and course.