Hey what's up triathletes, Taren here.
If when you've been swimming lately, you've noticed a little bit of pain on the inside
of your elbow, that's golfers elbow, or swimmers elbow.
Today we're going to talk about how you can treat it, fix that pain, and strengthen yourself
so that hopefully it doesn't come back.
Today I actually noticed a little bit of pain on the inside of my elbow which I'll often
get when I increase the volume on my swimming.
The technical term for this is, medial epicondylitis.
I should probably give you a disclaimer now that I'm not a physiotherapist or any sort
of medical fancy pants.
I did get these tips from people who are medical fancy pants.
It worked really well for me, and so it might work for you, but certainly don't take this
as official medical advice.
The cause for pain on the inside of the elbow and why it's so common for swimmers is that
day to day, we're often grabbing things, we're lifting, we're building up our forearms because
a lot of our motion is pulling in.
When we've got a very strong but also tight forearm on the inside here, and then when
we go and swim, and the water is pushing our hand out, against that really tight inside
forearm, it hyper-extends it.
That little bit of a push out as you're coming back in your swimming catch is what will often
lead to golfers elbow, swimmers elbow, and this medial epicondylitis.
The good news is that it's fairly easy to fix in my experience.
For the first two weeks you want to go through a very basic routine that is beating it up,
losing up the muscle, and then strengthening it.
How I like to beat it up is with a hand, and a spiky ball.
You start by either just using your knuckles to grind into the muscle and loosen it up
all the way down.
You can use that spiky ball, and that helps a little bit.
Just go all around the area that there's pain.
You'll feel it.
Don't go to hard.
The idea is just to loosen everything up.
If there's any scar tissue, break that up a little bit.
Loosen up the muscle so that it's ready to reform in a strong and aligned way.
Do that for just a couple of minutes to loosen up.
You don't need to loosen up the top side of your muscle.
Just all around the inside of the elbow where that pain is.
You can go a little bit up the bicep as well.
A couple minutes of that and you're done.
The next thing that you want to do in those first couple of weeks is strengthen the backside
of your forearm so that when you're going through your catch, you've got strength on
the backside of your forearm which opposes the inside of the forearm which is already
strong.
What I use for this is just a basic stretchy band.
I just wrap it around my hand, and you do three exercises.
One is a straight pull-away.
Give yourself just a little bit of tension.
It dose'nt need to be to tight.
Just enough that you've got a touch of resistance as you're going.
Do 10 to 12 of these.
Next you want to take the stretchy band and place it on the outside of your forearm as
you move your hand down.
It's like a handshake motion, and then you're just bringing your hand down.
Next is very, very similar.
It's pronating the entire hand.
Keep that stretchy band on the outside of your forearm, open, and then pronate.
Open, pronate.
It might be easier to see without the band.
The first movement that you do is just opening your hand.
The next movement that you do is opening your hand and moving it down like a handshake.
Then the next one is open, pronate.
Open, pronate.
Do 10 to 12 of those after loosening it up for the first couple of weeks.
After the first couple of weeks, if you're not in pain anymore and everything is good,
you can add a little bit of stretching.
Go through that same routine of beating up the inside of your forearm, and then add a
little bit of stretching.
Add one stretch, 15 to 20 seconds like this, not stretching to much, just enough to loosen
it up.
Next stretch, pulling your hand down.
The next stretch, twisting it for that pronation.
Then you go through the same routine with the elastic band and giving yourself a little
bit of resistance.
That's about all that you need to do.
I've had this situation crop up twice before, and both times I just went through this routine
and within about 10 to 14 days the pain went away completely.
The trick is that you want to get on it early.
If you let it go on for weeks and weeks, you're going to have a very chronic injury that will
start permeating throughout your entire arm because everything will become weak around
it and you will develop scar tissue.
Unfortunately maintenance of injuries is just something that us triathletes have to go through
because we're putting in so many hours of training in very repetitive movements.
This is nothing that you've got to be worried about.
It's just part of triathlons, so get used to it.
Give it a try, I hope it works for you.
As always, happy and hard training and good luck on your next triathlon.
Now I'm actually going to go and do this because it was the right arm.
I did the left arm for you guys because I care about you just that much.
You feel that in your pinky if you hit the right spot.