Tennis Elbow

[kai]

Hello,

My physio told me I have elbow tendonitis (tennis elbow in his words), he told me to massage it and ice it twice per day and "reduce" physical activity.

My question is that I'm doing WW and would like to know if there is any contraindications with so called tennis elbow with all those elbow circles. I don't play tennis by the way, my elbow started bothering me by doing weighted chins and working towards the one hand pushups from knee level.

What surprises me is that my chinning ability with a hammer grip isn't bothering me, neither are regular pushups, although they may adversely affect the healing process...

My goal would be to able to start working on clubbell exercises once I've read more about them (waiting for my book) but I have the feeling that they would adversely impact the recovery for the time being.

Thanks for your help.

[James Boelter]

The proof is in the pudding - if a few (2-3) days of low rep (5-10) Warrior Wellness exercises do not aggravate the inflammation and cause you increased pain and discomfort, you should be OK to proceed. Just be very conservative adding to the volume (no more than 10-20% increase in reps every 2 weeks or so) and number of exercises. IMO anything you do to help improve circulation and blood flow to the area will help.

BTW, 'tendonitis' is one of those all purpose terms that cover a lot of ground...MD's tend to use it indicriminately for all kinds of musculotendinous problems, including actual muscle/tendon strains where you have actually torn fibers. It might help to investigate further and narrow the diagnosis down to actual inflammation vs. torn fibers vs a trigger point or tender point acting up and putting the muscle into spasm and/or nerve impingment.

Just a thought...good luck and get better!

[kai]

You may well be right, I'll go and see my ortho and get a more profound diagnosis.

Actually, something appear to be loosening up while doing the elbow circles (the wrist circles are no longer bothering), there are indeed some end of range motions that stimulate the area without actual pain though, difficult to tell.

I will continue and slow the movements down around the area so I can better "introspect" and avoid going into irritable ranges.

Thanks for your concerns and I'll post back to report on progress or else.