Hey everybody it's Doctor Jo, and today I'm going to show you my top seven
treatments for golfers elbow. so let's get started.
so golfer's elbow, or medial epicondylitis. is when those wrist
flexors get irritated. and when I say wrist flexors and point up here. that's
because those muscles down at the wrist come all the way up and attach on that
inside elbow there, so when it when you do a lot of stuff and overwork those
muscles, it can get irritated right here. so the first treatment is just going to
be getting those muscles warmed up getting them moving, some active range of
motion to kind of get them warmed up before you start doing some stretches. so
a simple way to do that is just kind of put your arm out.
you can either bend your elbow if it's really irritated, or put your arms
straight out which is going to get a little bit more stretch in the movement.
so make a fist, and then just at your wrist, go up kind of stretch that area
and then come down. so since this is active range of motion that's not quite
a full stretch yet, do either continuous or just a little pause maybe three
seconds at each side. so this isn't quite going into a full stretch yet this is
just getting some motion in there in there to get those muscles warmed up and
loosened up before you go into some stretching, so I would just start off
with maybe five each way, ten total, just to kind of get again those muscles
ready to go. so after you kind of feel it a little warm in there, you're getting
them loosened up, you're going to go into a stretch to stretch out those wrist
flexors underneath. so to start off, put your arms straight out. so this time you
want your elbow locked out to get the stretch. we're going to go into a
progression, so if you're really sore, start off with a fist and just bring it
up this way. so you're gonna feel a little stretch underneath there if you
want a little bit more, take your other hand and just kind of pull on it so this
is going to be a full stretch, so you want to hold that stretch for thirty
seconds. if you get to the thirty Seconds and you don't feel like that's really
stretching it a whole lot, since those wrist flexors are all the
way into the fingers, open up your hand with your finger straight out and then
go into that stretch and you should feel that one a lot more. so again holding
that for 30 seconds and doing that 3 times. so if you are a little
uncomfortable using your other hand to push that way, you can go up to a wall or
if you're at your desk or something and you've got something flat, you can just
push your hand into it and get that stretch as well, so again 30 seconds 3
times. another great treatment is using an elbow support or a brace and so
Simien has this great elbow support for golfers elbow, and so you can see here on
the inside where the blue is there's just this pressure point where it's a
little bit firmer, this is where you want to put right on the muscle belly. so a
great rule of thumb of putting on the strap is actually using your thumb, so
the muscles here when you press on it is about where you want that blue spot to
be. so a good rule of thumb is take your thumb right where your crease is and put
it there, and then you want to start the brace right after your thumb, so that
spot gets right on that muscle belly where it's irritated, and what this does
is it puts pressure on that muscle belly to take the pressure off of that medial
epicondyle right there, so it just makes it so it's not pulling on it constantly
and helps get rid of some of that irritation. what's also cool about this
brace is they have a long strap and they have a short strap or small and a large,
so it also comes with two which is really nice as well, so if you got it on
both sides you can use that. I am probably a small that's what works best
for me, and it also comes with a cool little sweat wristband which is very
nice, so what you want to do is just kind of put it nice and loose to get it on
first, and then bring it around so again here's my crease I want to kind of put
my thumb there and know that's about where I'm gonna put the brace. so
bringing it up nice, thumb in between, and so that blue spot underneath is
going to get right on that muscle belly. you want it to be tight but comfortable,
so this is a really nice comfortable strap and in it and it's very
comfortable there but you want to make sure it's not too tight. you don't want
those fingers going cold or numb, but you want to have some nice pressure on there.
but you can see it's not right at my elbows so I can still move I've got
freedom there it's not preventing me from having that movement, but that's
about where you want you don't want it right at the elbow, you want it just
below on that muscle belly to get that pressure on there and take the pressure
off of that epicondyle there, so this is a really great support and something
extra to use just to help that healing process. so if you're interested in
purchasing it, make sure you click up there. so the next thing we're gonna go
into some actual strengthening stuff, so after you've stretched it out after
you've gotten everything loose enough you want to do some strengthening. when
you start off with this strengthening, you don't want to go a whole lot of
weight because again this is already a little bit irritated, might be a lot
irritated, so if you do a lot of weight is just gonna irritate it more. I like
soup cans or vegetable cans because they're only about a pound, and they fit
it really nicely in your hand, so you can have some good support while you're
holding it. you don't have to squeeze on really tight, you can just kind of hold
it in your hand. if you have a tabletop that you want to just place your elbow
on that works well, just have your wrist so it has movement, but if you feel
comfortable you can just kind of hold it in the air. this time you want to keep
your elbow bent, just to take some pressure off the area. so with your palm
down, you want to just at your wrist. go down and then nice and slow coming up. so
just starting off with about ten of these, you want to do a nice slow
controlled motion going from each end as far as you can. this is going to make
sure that you get that full motion so you're not sitting here going back and
forth you're going all the way up and all the way down, nice and controlled
going down that's working that. after you do ten that way, turn it over with your
palm up and then go down getting that stretch there, and
then coming up, strengthening that inside there. so again as far as you comfortably
can without a whole lot of pain, it might be a little bit of pain just because
it's irritated and you're working in, but you don't want any sharp pain in there.
just that kind of soreness pain is okay. so again I would just start off with ten
of those maybe two sets of ten, don't go overboard because it might not hurt
while you're doing it, but it might hurt later, so just give yourself a day, see
how it feels. if it feels good, and you don't have any soreness, then you can go
up to three sets of ten, two sets of fifteen, if you get to 20 - 25, and it's
super easy, then you can get a heavier weight to do that. number five is going
to be also a simian product which is their armbar. this is really really great
for the shoulder the elbow and the wrist, just kind of the arm in general, and what
I really like about their armbar product is it comes with inserts, so you can
start off with the lightest and then as it becomes easy, you can put the extra
poundage in there and it makes it harder as you go, and it gives you more
resistance. so it's kind of an all in one piece, so it's nice because then you
don't have to keep getting more and more arm bars, you'd have it all right there,
so make sure that you start off with the lightest one because this is going to be
eccentric motions, and its really works the muscles even more than the
concentric, and what eccentric is it's the controlling going back down. so it's
it's really more stressful on the muscles, so you don't want to do a whole
lot. sometimes the protocols say three times fifteen, I would start off with
just five at a time, so maybe three sets of five and see how you feel the next
day because you can always go up easily, but if you start off with too much, then
it's really hard to come back down because you're already irritated and
then you're gonna have a hard time doing it. so this is kind of an interesting
movement, so I'm just going to go through it step by step, and then I'll do the
movement fluidly so you can see it. so what you want to do if you're
working your left hand, bring it up like this and put your wrist into flexion. so
you're coming in like this almost like you're
making a muscle, but you're doing it in front of you. so holding on to the bar
coming in to wrist flexion, so while you're holding it here, your right side
should feel pretty good so you can you can move it freely because the point of
this is to get the bar twisted. so you have a lot of resistance on the other
side, so the higher up you can grab it higher up you can bring your elbow, and
grab underneath the more you're going to be able twist it, so you're going to come
up high like this, and twist it into extension. so you've got flexion here
wrist extension here, so again here come up twist it and as you come down
straighten out your hand. and then as you're holding it with that left side
slowly come back into wrist extension on that side. so you're going from flexion
to extension and you should really be able to feel it here. so again don't do a
whole lot the first time, but up here bring the other hand with your palm
facing out, curl it in hold, and then go in like that, so just really getting that
motion through there. so number six with the arm bar is going to be some
stability of the elbow. so this movement I really like because what it does is it
makes your muscles activate and prevent your arm and elbow from moving around a
lot, and this is a great way to strengthen that area the whole arm in
general, so the shoulder the wrist and the elbow, and a lot of times you have
problems at the elbow you're gonna have a little bit of problems at the joint
above and the joint below because they're compensating, so with this one you want
to keep your elbow bent and the most of the movement is gonna be at your wrist.
so you're not moving your whole arm when you're doing this, you're really moving
at your wrist and trying to keep the whole arm stabilized. so as I started
doing this, look here you you'll be able to see my muscles start contracting. so
what I'm gonna do is just kind of take that so the top part is moving, my wrist
is moving a little bit, but my arm is staying in one spot, and so it's really
just making all those muscles kind of contract and making them work, but not
making them do big movements that might irritate even more. so I really like using those.
You can go this way, you can then hold it up top and go
back and forth this way, which is going to get that pronation supination which
is also important to help strengthen that area. so again trying to keep that
elbow still and just wiggling back and forth. so it's a really great way just to
kind of get all that movement in there make that those muscles really work and
stabilize everything but not getting those big movements as so might irritate
the area. so this is also really nice because you can see it's got some edges
on it so you can also kind of do some massaging and stuff as well. if you're
interested in purchasing the armbar make sure you click up here. so for the
last one is going to be a soft tissue massage or mobilization kind of thing. so
some people call it massage, you're really mobilizing the tissue and so what
you want to do is try and break up some of those adhesions or scar tissue in
there. when you have a lot of inflammation that builds up those
adhesions scar tissue, and it just causes a lot of problems if it stays in there,
so what you're trying to do is actually move or mobilize the area. so it's not
rubbing just kind of massaging the area, you can do that, but for this purpose
you're really trying to move that whole area along that inner elbow or that
medial epicondyle to get that scar tissue broken up. so you can go side
to side, up and down that area, you can do circles in that area, but see how I'm
actually moving the skin? I'm not just rubbing it moving it around, and you can
go up and down as well. if you want to you can use a lotion or a cream with it,
just make sure then it so you don't have as much friction so make sure you're
still moving the tissue that you're not just massaging the area, and again
massaging it is fine, but for this purpose you really want to mobilize that
area which is which is nice. and if it starts getting a little bit red that's
okay that's just getting blood to the area there and that helps increase the
circulation and move inflamation out, so that's kind of what
you're trying to do. so there you have it those are my top seven treatments for
golfer's elbow. If have any questions leave in the comments section, if you're
interested in purchasing any of those products, make sure you click up here, and
don't forget to subscribe by clicking down here. and remember, be safe ,have fun,
and I hope you feel better soon.