To see additional videos and tools needed to self-treat for Golfer's and Tennis Elbow: Grassroots Self Treatment
THE DOWNSTREAM SOLUTION
Examining the movement patterns in our wrist and fingers are also highly relevant to solving elbow pain, as our hands interact with our environment (whether that entails gripping rock or a glass of water). Wrist stability and a balance between the strength and length of the muscles and fascia that cross our wrists and run along our fingers are just as important as those upstream players mentioned above. Part 3 of our Hang Right series will focus on the downstream problem in detail.
RECOMMENDED PARAMETERS FOR REMODELING EXERCISES:
Let your symptoms be your guide for finding the right number of repetitions for each exercise.
1. Find a level of resistance that produces your familiar symptoms or discomfort within a handful of repetitions (for example, perform 5 repetitions until reproduction of your familiar symptoms). Make sure there is no lasting pain following these repetitions.
2. Perform three to five sessions of this number of repetitions throughout the day. Continue until this exercise no longer produces your familiar symptoms.
3. Over a period of 6-8 weeks, progress the load by small increments (2-5 pounds), being sure to reproduce your familiar symptoms with no lasting pain once you finish.
4. You’ll be ready to ease into climbing and activities that used to reproduce your symptoms when you can do these activities without reproducing your symptoms during or following them. You can discontinue these remodeling exercises once you no longer have any symptoms with normal activities or climbing. You may, however, choose to add them to your weekly maintenance program or to use them as a warm up before climbing.
CONCLUSION: BRITTANY 5 YEARS LATER
By employing these Upstream, Local, and Downstream solutions to Brittany’s arm, we were able to resolve her chronic elbow, shoulder and neck pain within a few months. While Brittany continues to get tweaks and acute injuries like the rest of us, regular check-ins allow her to maintain balance between what is tight and what is weak, so that she can continue to function as a professional climber and gypsy woman without interference from injury or pain.
If we climb, train and function with stability and balance in the structures upstream and downstream from our elbows, then we can load our elbows appropriately. Achieving an optimally balanced system in our arms may take dedicated work, but can help to preserve that poor elbow that just happens to get caught in the middle.