Tennis Elbow - The injury that even non-atheletes suffer from

I believe people who play tennis as a competitive or recreational sport will suffer from tennis-related injuries such as tennis elbow, wrist strains, ankle sprains etc.

We won't be touching on all the injuries today but will only touch on the first injury mention which is the tennis elbow.

Tennis Elbow, also known as Lateral Epicondylitis is a condition where the elbow region (outermost part of the elbow closer to the forearm) is painful or having soreness due to the inflammation of the tendons. This is due to the overuse or repeated use of the arm and forearm muscles leading to the occurence of the injury. This injury can happen to anyone but more commonly seen in people who engage in tennis or other racquet sports. Most of the time, it occurs on the dominant hand (frequent use) but can also occur in the non-dominant arm or even on both arms.

Causes for Tennis Elbow:

• Repetitive use or overuse of the wrist in activities (eg painting, typing etc)
• Using a poor technique when playing tennis or other racquet sports (such as a poor backhand)
• Using a improper equipment

Symptoms for Tennis Elbow:

• Pain felt around the outer area of the elbow
• Weakness experience by the forearm
• Increasing pain felt when movements done involving the wrist such as lifting, using of utensils etc.

   

Treatment for Tennis Elbow:

• Take a break and avoid activities that cause pain to be felt on the elbow
• Ice the elbow region where the pain occurs, this will reduce swelling too
• Wear a support (such as elbow guard) below the elbow to allow the tendon to heal or during training/strengthening

How to prevent Tennis Elbow:

• Adopt a proper technique while doing sports
• Strengthen the muscles around the elbow (such as forearm, upper arm etc) through push-ups, pull-ups 
• Stretching should be done to warm up the muscles before engaging in the activities
• Reduce in the amount of time spend on the activity and have longer rest time

Tennis elbow is painful and can lead to life-time damage to the arms if not treated. If the symptoms persist for long period of time, do seek help from your personal health provider, medications will be given to improve on the condition. This condition takes time to recover, prevention is always better than cure. Support Safe Sports!