Pain on the outside of the elbow. Stiffness in the elbow when waking up in the morning. Increased elbow pain when grasping objects or repeatedly moving the elbow. If you have all these symptoms, it’s a good bet that you have a condition called lateral epicondylitis.
More commonly, this condition is called tennis elbow. It’s estimated that up to 3% of the U.S. population develops this condition every year. This means that almost 10 million Americans could develop tennis elbow this year based on current population statistics. Physical therapists often use exercises to treat tennis elbow. However, there are certain exercises your therapists might recommend that you avoid to keep your tennis elbow from getting worse.
What are some exercises you should avoid to keep tennis elbow from worsening?
The therapeutic exercises that therapists typically prescribe for tennis elbow are designed to be gentle. They can also help stretch and strengthen the forearm muscles and elbow ligaments affected by this injury. However, there are certain types of exercise therapists typically avoid when working with tennis elbow patients. Three of these are:
- Repetitive weight-bearing exercises — Many exercises involve holding up most of your body weight while moving your arms. The chin-up is one common example. Pushups are another example of a common exercise that falls into this category. For tennis elbow patients, such exercises place a lot of stress on the injured elbow. This stress can slow down your recovery or even injure your elbow further.
- High-weight wrist exercises — Physical therapists often prescribe wrist exercises as part of a tennis elbow therapy plan. However, the exercises they prescribe are done with little or no weight. You might be used to doing barbell extensions and other exercises that use a lot of weight, but you’ll want to avoid them during your recovery. If you don’t, it’s possible that your recovery could be longer than you thought.
- Straight-arm exercises — Straight-arm exercises like planks are popular for building core strength. Other exercises in this category, like pullovers and L-sits, are popular for building arm strength. However, doing these types of exercises is a no-no when you have tennis elbow. Straight-arm exercises require that you hold your arm rigid for extended periods of time. This places a huge amount of pressure on elbow tendons and forearm muscles, which can impede your recovery.
Panther Physical Therapy can help you figure out which exercises to avoid with tennis elbow
The exercises that should be avoided if you have tennis elbow will depend on how it’s affecting you specifically. Our team at Panther Physical Therapy can help you figure out which exercises will and won’t work for you. We’ll start by having you come into one of our clinics for a free screening. The data we gather in this screening will then be used to build a personalized therapy plan for your tennis elbow.
Are you ready to start getting our help with your tennis elbow treatment? Contact our team today for more information or to schedule your free screening.