Golfer’s Elbow Exercises (Medial Epicondylitis)
Golfer’s elbow causes pain and tightness on the inside of the elbow. It’s the result of inflammation of the flexor tendon where it attaches to the medial epicondyle. Sometimes it causes grip pain or hand weakness, and occasionally numbness/tingling into the little finger and ring finger.
If the pain is acute, start off by icing it a few times a day (10 minutes on at a time with 5-10 minutes between icing) to reduce the inflammation.
Then do these three Golfer’s Elbow exercise in order:
- Start off by pressing on any trigger points in the inner forearm. They are hard parts of the muscle which when pressed cause a strong local ache and sometimes referred pain into the fingers. Press each spot for 30 seconds. You may find a few.
- Then with your elbow straight, use your other hand to stretch you fingers and wrist back. (See video) Resist with your forearm flexors but allow your other hand to win until your fingers and wrist are stretched right back. Then slowly flex the wrist and fingers again and repeat the process of stretching the muscles with slow resistance ten times.
- To end we use this same style of repeated eccentric contraction, but this time in external rotation. Hold a 2kg weight with most of the weight above the hand, allow the weight of gravity to externally rotate the wrist until we feel a stretch in our forearm near the elbow, and repeat ten times slowly.
Recent research shows that scapula control is a big factor in elbow tendinitis too. A lack of stability in the shoulder blade forces the forearm muscles to compensate. We see this in pitchers and people doing heavy weights in gym. If the shoulders move a lot in the movements that aggravate the elbow, always get the shoulders checked.
Here’s a link to the exercises that stabilise the shoulder blade and protect the elbow.
Here’s my Youtube channel.
Stefan Becker
Barcelona Chiropractor