Hey everybody it's Doctor Jo. I'm just chillin out by the fireplace on a lazy
rainy day. Who's that at the door? Hey, Nick, come on in. Come sit in my fancy chair.
I met Nick at NextUp YouTube class of 2017 How you doing? I'm doing pretty good. How are you Doctor Jo?
I'm doing great. Tell us a little bit about your channel.
Alright so my channel, we throw cards. So what that means, give cards a little
flick, throw them around. And the issue that I run in to, is my subscribers and I,
we run it to elbow pain. Ah yeah. All that throwing. I could see that that
would be a very repetitive painful thing. You know what? I think I've got some
stretches and exercise for that. Yeah? Let's check them out right here.
Whoa! It came all the way through. So with Nick's
repetitive movements of throwing those cards, he gets a lot of pain in the elbow
area. And sometimes it's called tennis elbow, sometimes called iPad elbow, and so
now we can call it cards elbow. But a great way to work these muscles, these
muscles start at the elbow, but they come all the way down to the wrist and they
actually do a lot of movement at the wrist, so those flicking motions that he
does probably causes a lot of that to. So we're just going to stretch out these
muscles all the way through. A good way to start is to get those flexors and
extensors by putting your arm straight out if you put your fist, if you put your
hands in and make a fist, and come up, you'll get a little bit of a stretch
under here. If you want more of a stretch put your fingers up into a stop sign
position, and then you can put a little bit of pressure over it this way. You
should really feel that one underneath. because you want to stretch both sides.
So you're going to hold this stretch for about 30 seconds, and then do three of
those. But you can alternate back and forth to get those extensors by coming
down this way. This is the opposite, if your fingers are open it's not quite as
much of a stretch, but if you make a fist you're going to get a lot bigger stretch
there, and then you can put a little bit of pressure over that way. So I like to
alternate back and forth through my 30 seconds and then
a total of three on each side. So coming up, doing that stretch, but really hold it
for that 30 seconds if you can, and then coming down and holding that stretch.
Once you get those wrist flexors and extensors stretched out a little bit, you
can stretch your supination and pronation, and the way I like to do that
is grab a hammer or something that's a little top-heavy because that helps you
get a little bit of an overpressure stretch. Keep your elbow bent by your
side because if you do it straight out you're going, to you're going to rotate
your whole shoulder, and we really want to get down here at the elbow and the
wrist. So bend that elbow, keep it by your side, and then hold the hammer and just
go down this way which is in the supination. Hold it for about three to
five seconds, and then come back the other way into pronation. And so the
little bit of the weight on the hammer pulls it just a little bit more to give
you that stretch going back and forth. So it's a nice little stretch it's also a
nice little exercise as well. I would just start off with about ten of these
on each side, and you can go smoothly or just holding it a little bit. So after
you get those stretched out a little bit, you can go into doing some band work to
help strengthen the area. There different color bands are the different hardness
of resistance, usually the yellow one is the lightest and the red is the next
lightest, so you might want to start off with the lightest, but just getting some
resistance in there to start building up those muscles a little bit. And a lot of
times people ask, well it's sore, do I want to do that, but with resistive bands, it
works really well to kind of help get that irritation out of there as long as
you're not overdoing it. If you want to place your hand on a table or something,
you can, or you can kind of hold your elbow here, or if you feel good enough,
you can just kind of hold it up into this position. We're going to start off
with our palm down, and you just want to do the movement at the wrist, but that's
really going to work those elbow muscles up there as well, so
pulling up this way, and then come all the way down. So you want to come all the
way through the movement, you don't want to stop here, you want to come all the
way down, and then pull up and then nice and slow back down. So again just
starting off with about ten of these, you don't want to overdo it and irritate it
even more, but you definitely want to work it out and try and get that
inflammation out of there. After you do ten that way, turn it over. A lot of
times I like to kind of get the band in the middle area and then just go the
opposite way. So now you're going to curl up and then slowly come back down.
So same thing, just nice slow controlled do about ten of those, but make sure
when you come up, you're not just letting it plop back down. Control that
band because you don't want to injure anything more, and then this coming down
is equally as important, so make sure that smooth control motion. Then next
you're going to come up into this position where your thumb is up, and then
you're going to go what's called the radial deviation, which is pulling up
this way, and then coming back down. So again still doing that full movement all
the way down, all the way up, and making sure that you're working the band, don't
let the band work you. And then the last one with the band, it's going to be an
ulnar deviation, and the way I like to do that is just hold it in both hands here
with your thumb pointing towards each other, and then you're just going to take
it and go out this way. So again, controlling the band, nice smooth motion,
going all the way out, coming all the way in, and then just doing about ten of
those, and really just with 10 of each you'll you'll be able to feel that
you're working those muscles. So after you work those you can take something
like a towel, you can take a ball, you can even just take a little small foam roll,
and do some squeezes. So now you're just going to kind of squeeze in, hold it for
about three to five seconds, and then come
out. So if you don't have anything like a roll you can just roll up a towel if you
want to, but if you have something like a tennis ball or Nerf ball, that works
really well for kind of squeezing, holding it for a little bit, and then let
it go. And again you'll be able to feel that it's working all these muscles here.
And then so the last exercise is going to be with a band, and then we'll do some
nice massages and stuff at the end. So with the rubber band, take it, it doesn't
have to be fancy rubber band, it can just be any rubber band, and put it around
your fingers. And then with your fingers, you're just going to kind of open them
up this way, and then slowly come back in. So it's the same thing with the band,
when you come out don't just let them pop it back in, really control it coming
back in. So you're going to go out, and then nice and slow back in. I just do
maybe about ten of those as well. So after you get all those exercises, you're
probably feeling a little bit, you've worked those muscles, they feel nice and
warm, and then to make it feel good afterwards, you can do a massage on the
area. So just getting some cream or some lotion, but all these muscles at the
wrist and elbow kind of come up here, and they come up on this side too ,but
probably the the motion especially that Nick feels with that spin motion of the
card is here, so just getting some lotion to help make it easier to rub, but just
doing some circular motions around this area right here. Some people like to get
a massager you can do that because the vibration works really well too, but I
also think just giving it a nice massage on the on the muscles and the tendons
that come up and attach right here, is really nice as well.
And if you use lotion, it will be a little bit smoother, it's not as much
friction, but just to give you an idea making little kind of circle motions
right along that area in that elbow joint right in there. And then so after
you do this, you can do this for about 2 or 3 minutes, just to get it nice and
calmed back down, and then my favorite at the very end is an ice massage.
So just grab an ice cube, and then I'll show you that real quick. So all you need
is an ice cube. Sometimes if you want a little bit more,
you can take those little little cups and put some ice in it, and then once it
freezes you can tear the cup away, but I like just having an ice cube kind of
wrapped up in a paper towel. So what you want to do with an ice massage is really
only do about six minutes. Since it's direct ice on the skin, this is not a ten
to fifteen minute kind of thing, but just directly on there you're going to start
off really light, and you're just going to do some circles. And the reason you
want to go really light is because at first you're really going to feel it's
going to feel cold, and it's going to feel burney and stingy, but if you can
tolerate about a minute of that, then it'll kind of go numb, and once it goes
numb, then you're going to start putting a little more pressure on it and doing
the massage part. So really just getting around in that area, that that area that's
irritated, those tendons maybe like a tendinitis or the bursa
a bursitis, or even the tennis elbow which is epicondylitis, but just really
working that area. The more it gets numb, push harder, you really want to get that
massage in there, you want that irritation to get out of there,
but you really only want to do this for about six minutes. You don't want to do
it too much more than that, and so I won't go the whole six minutes,
but that is what you would do. Alright so there you have it. There you go, oh,
those are your stretching exercise for a little bit of elbow pain. Hey yeah, yeah
yeah, so don't forget to subscribe to Nick's channel. Don't forget to subscribe to
Ask Doctor Jo. And remember, be safe, have fun. And I hope feel better soon. Yeah!