How to Treat Tennis Elbow Pain: Exercise-Isometrics
Transcript
Hi guys it is Brad from POGO Physio.
I want to demonstrate today a terrific exercise for tendon elbow pain. Typically, the elbow gets sore in this region and is known in layman’s terms as Tennis Elbow and you don’t have to be a tennis player to suffer that. The scientific name for it is lateral (meaning on the outside) epicondylitis which just means pain on the outside of the elbow. It can either be typically an acute tendon disruption or a tendon tear of one of the tendons that come up and insert into the bone here or a chronic or more long standing, slowly building, type discomfort which is more of a degenerative type change in the tendon.
Whether it is the acute tear which you typically know about because you do something or you go to pick something up and you feel the pain or whether it is the long standing chronic degenerative change in the tendon here, either way, this exercise which I am about to demonstrate works terrifically.
It is an isometric activation of the muscle. Isometric means that the muscle length doesn’t change while it generates tension. So we are also going to be strengthening which is the purpose of the muscles at the same time. You will need Theraband or TubiGrip which we will look at in a moment from your local Physio. There are different colours for different resistances. You simply take a step back with a little bit of a bend in your elbow and you try and push back into the band. You are trying to extend your elbow and hold it out there. We are going to hold that for about 30 to 45 seconds and repeat that up to 6 repetitions and then relax. This is with the Tubigrip and you just wrap that around your hand and, same deal, just holding it back setting the shoulders in a good position for 30 to 45 seconds and half a dozen repetitions.
There you have it the Isometric Elbow extensor exercise. Have fun with it and we will see you soon, bye.
Yours in physical best performance,
Brad Beer (APAM)
Physiotherapist, Author You CAN Run Pain Free!, Founder POGO Physio
