Quote:
>As a 51-year-old hacker who swings way too hard and is now paying the
>price, I have a case of tennis elbow. Doc says exercise hand with
>spring grip device while arm is bent, lay off tennis a couple of weeks,
>take Aleve a couple of times per day. Any other ideas out there?
When I had a severe tennis elbow, none of the conventional treatments
helped much -- anti-inflammatory medicine, brace, chiropractor. I
finally had to lay off tennis for a year and a half (as painful in its
way as my elbow was playing tennis). Someone suggested that I needed to
get my backhand straightened out, once my tennis elbow healed. I had
always favored my backhand because I could hit the ball hard and place
it accurately.
When I returned to tennis after the long lay-off, I got a super tennis
instructor. What made her super was her ability to analyze my faulty
backhand stroke and convey in ways that I could understand what I
needed to do to change it. In my case, she observed that I was making
contact with the ball too late. That is, I was permitting the ball to
get a little too far back before making contact with the racket. The
ball ended up doing exactly what I intended, but at a big price. Namely,
I was using the force of my arm to drive the ball instead of using a
shift in body weight (from my back leg to my front leg) to transfer
power to the racket. Once I made the necessary change in my backhand, I
never had tennis elbow again.
I don't know exactly what caused your tennis elbow, but you'll probably
have to lay off tennis until the inflammation heals. Once it does, try
to find a really good tennis teacher (analyzer) to observe you for the
purpose of seeing what you're doing to cause tennis elbow. Then, of
course, it will be necessary to make a change, or changes. Good luck.
Tennis Elbow