There are a lot of good suggestions in this thread, but honestly do you really want to have to do all of that. I have yet to find a person who this hasn't fixed there elbow tendonitis... assuming they actually did it.
Sleep with your arms straight!!!! Actually they don't have to be completely straight, but most of the way. When most people sleep they keep their arms tightly bent, from my understanding this keeps the tendon inflamed all night long, thus giving you no healing time. Actually you get the opposite, a whole night of making it worse. This is especially frustrating if you have spent your whole day doing what everyone else suggested, just to make it worse at night... hard work gone.
I know a lot of people who did all of the above suggestions to no avail, but then started sleeping with their arms straight and dumped the rest of their rehab and it fixed it. Once you train yourself to sleep that way its easy, it only took about a week, and I didn't even sleep bad that week.
Don't waste your time with the other stuff, except for maybe push-ups and ibuprofen.
Tendinitis
Re: Tendinitis
Do Corpse Pose until you eventually fall asleep
http://online.prevention.com/beatinsomn ... t/12.shtml
Or, get some 4 inch PVC and make some arm sleeves.
http://online.prevention.com/beatinsomn ... t/12.shtml
Or, get some 4 inch PVC and make some arm sleeves.
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climb2core
- Posts: 2224
- Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:04 pm
Re: Tendinitis
Andrew,Andrew wrote:There are a lot of good suggestions in this thread, but honestly do you really want to have to do all of that. I have yet to find a person who this hasn't fixed there elbow tendonitis... assuming they actually did it.
Sleep with your arms straight!!!! Actually they don't have to be completely straight, but most of the way. When most people sleep they keep their arms tightly bent, from my understanding this keeps the tendon inflamed all night long, thus giving you no healing time. Actually you get the opposite, a whole night of making it worse. This is especially frustrating if you have spent your whole day doing what everyone else suggested, just to make it worse at night... hard work gone.
I know a lot of people who did all of the above suggestions to no avail, but then started sleeping with their arms straight and dumped the rest of their rehab and it fixed it. Once you train yourself to sleep that way its easy, it only took about a week, and I didn't even sleep bad that week.
Don't waste your time with the other stuff, except for maybe push-ups and ibuprofen.
Please stop suggesting such nonsense. If people start healing their elbow tendonitis but just sleeping with straight arms how will we profit from it. There would be no need for
1.) Cure all books
2.) Physical therapy (Yikes!!!!)
3.) Rollers
4.) Pharmaceutics
5.) Bands, grippers, twisters, and thing-a-ma-jigs
6.) Elbow braces
7.) Doctor visits
It is this type of thinking that has caused the current economic depression. For the love of God, please stop!
Re: Tendinitis
Andrew is not wrong before the Flexbars I had to use a ribbon to tie my arms down to my thighs to cure the habit of sleeping curled up...it was funny but it helped a lot now I don't sleep with them curled up but I still us the Flexbar because it helps in so many ways... 
Also phone to you ears for long periods of time hurt them too...
Also phone to you ears for long periods of time hurt them too...
Margarita
The difference between bravery and stupidity is the outcome.
The difference between bravery and stupidity is the outcome.
Re: Tendinitis
tutugirl wrote:Andrew is not wrong before the Flexbars I had to use a ribbon to tie my arms down to my thighs to cure the habit of sleeping curled up...it was funny but it helped a lot now I don't sleep with them curled up but I still us the Flexbar because it helps in so many ways...
Also phone to you ears for long periods of time hurt them too...
100%
Still do the therapy, but it will all be a waste if you are sleeping with your arms bent. Also, if I talk on the phone a long time, my elbow definitely hurts... same thing as sleeping except sleeping is for much longer. I no longer have any climbing tendonitis despite non-stop bouldering, dyno's, deadpoints, and everything else that shamis said to stop doing.
Living the dream
Re: Tendinitis
As I mentioned in my original post, I think stretching the biceps is important. The number one trigger for me when I start to get tennis elbow is really tight biceps.
I haven't found anything as telling for golf elbow. Ice/ibuprofen/rest days were the only solution I could find for that.
Doing a few pushups on off days definitely seems to help me, and warming up. A great way to combine the 2 is to do 10-20 pushups before you start climbing, it helps you warm up and it will get you into a routine of working some of the opposing muscles.
I haven't found anything as telling for golf elbow. Ice/ibuprofen/rest days were the only solution I could find for that.
Doing a few pushups on off days definitely seems to help me, and warming up. A great way to combine the 2 is to do 10-20 pushups before you start climbing, it helps you warm up and it will get you into a routine of working some of the opposing muscles.
Re: Tendinitis
Oh, I almost forgot. Never neglect to assess your work ergonomics when dealing with tendinitis. I really believe that poor ergonomics at work setup tightness in the muscles/tendons around the elbows which then quickly flares up into tendinitis when you go out climbing. All the more reason why you need a good warmup to help loosen things up before you get on anything hard.
One of the worst things for elbow tendinitis is using a crappy mouse. A dirty or unresponsive mouse will often lead to a lot of extra twitchy movement to get the mouse where you want it quickly. Make sure you have a good, clean, responsive mouse, preferably with an ergonomic shape. If you don't work on computers then look for other repetitive use that could trigger it. Typing on a crappy keyboard can also trigger it.
One of the worst things for elbow tendinitis is using a crappy mouse. A dirty or unresponsive mouse will often lead to a lot of extra twitchy movement to get the mouse where you want it quickly. Make sure you have a good, clean, responsive mouse, preferably with an ergonomic shape. If you don't work on computers then look for other repetitive use that could trigger it. Typing on a crappy keyboard can also trigger it.
Re: Tendinitis
In the hopes that it helps you, JeffCastro, I'll share my recent story. Sounds pretty similar to yours, I believe, minus the PT visit.
I just came back from ~3 months completely off of climbing to let my Tendonitis lighten up.
BACKSTORY:
I was glad to be climbing a bunch this Summer (all in the gym), and felt like I was really excited to be feeling stronger. Towards the end of summer, i started pushing it and overdoing it. On top of already frequent gym visits (~4 times a week, probably 15 hours/week avg of time spent in gym) I really overdid it one day. I spent an hour or two rope climbing stuff about two or three letter grades below my limit, then bouldered casually for about an hour, then got really psyched on a problem that was at my limit. At this point I didn't feel injured, just tired. I probably gave more than a dozen tries on the problem with almost no effective rest between goes (think 1 to 5 minutes, usually). Finally got the problem, and even though I felt tired, I felt strong, and psyched. I left the gym feeling tired, but not at all injured.
The next day I felt stiff, but still not injured. It wasn't until the next time I tried to climb that I realized I'd eff'ed up. A couple days after overdoing it, I got on something 2 number grades (8 letter grades) well below my limit. I could barely hold on to rest jugs without major discomfort bordering sharp pain. That was it for the day.
I tried to climb a few more times in the following days with the same result. Finally admitted to myself I'd developed a mild but persistent medial epicondylitis.
THERAPY/ REST:
I decided I was going to rest the elbow completely until it felt back to 99%. No climbing, no pullups, only very light activity with occasional low weight reverse wrist curls. If an activity caused any elbow pain, I didn't do it. I took Advil when my elbow felt stiff, and sometimes just because I was thinking about it. Tried to massage it often, but I certainly wasn't disciplined about it, and hardly ever iced it. I started jogging a lot more to stay active and also promote blood flow. No visits to a PT, but lots of looking around online for recommended therapy and lots of talking to friends who'd nursed tendonitis as well.
RECOVERY:
It's been about 4 months since the day I overdid it. The time away from climbing was a nice emotional break from a very addiciting and life-consuming activity, but I was psyched to feel well enough to return. I spent a week or two climbing nothing that was anywhere near my limit (think 8s and 9s instead of 12s). I still felt very slight stiffness, but it felt more like an atrophy thing that inflamation. After a few weeks of very casual climbing I started pushing the grade again. After ~3 weeks of that I feel like I'm getting back to where I was before the injury, but I still try to be very cautious and aware of how my elbow is responding to climbing at any difficult.
LESSONS LEARNED:
In hindsight, the tendonitis developed not because I was climbing, but because I was climbing too much, and with no discipline. The theory is entirely anecdotal, but I think that when my back muscles got tired from climbing all day, my tendon's started taking even more of the strain, and that's while they had already been worked hard that day. (In addition to the tendonitis, a feeling like some muscle/tendon/cord was out of place or loose around the back bottom of the shoulder/armpit -- if you put your left thumb in your right armpit and grasp that lump of muscle/tendons on the backside, thereabouts.)
There seem to be tons of suggestions for how to recover from tendonitis, and all forms of therapy, but I didn't see anything while researching that was a magic bullet, quick fix. The sound advice was always RICE. There seem to be plenty of expensive measures offered, but no really strong case for anything other than time-off and trying not to aggravate the inflamation.
So I think the key take-away is to focus on and preach prevention rather than recovery.
Preventative Rules I'm now living by:
1) Learn to take it easy. Climb and push grades without overdoing it. You only get stronger while resting.
2) Be paranoid about tendonitis. Warm up, stretch, exercise opposing muscles, etc...
3) Don't climb when tired or sore or in pain. Even tired back or core muscles seem to make it more likely that I'm going to bit unwarranted strain on the medial epicondyl
QUESTIONS FOR THE COMMUNITY:
1) Given that Medial Epicondylitis seems to be one of the most common injury among climbers, is there any single source/repository of information on RRC.com or elsewhere (a book specifically about Medial Epicondylitis) that people have found very informative and useful? (Think quality college biology textbook, only specifically for tendons and tendonitis, ideally medial epicondylitis specifically)
2) The thing I was wondering the whole time I was on the disabled list was that I feel like I almost never hear about pro (or even elite but not pro) climbers being disabled by tendonitis. Falls, broken bones, etc, sure... Does anyone have any theories and/or evidence about this? Are the elite just genetically less predisposed to tendonitis, and that's part of why they climb so hard? Are the elite more disciplined? They seem to climb more and climb harder than other climbers, I'd expect you'd be more likely to hear about injuries from climbers in the v10-v15 range rather than the v0-v9 range, but I definitely feel like per capita I hear more about injuries from average joe rather than perenial dirtbags or the elite, regardless of age, experience, etc.
3) When my neck is sore, my elbow seems to be flaring up more than usual, and vice versa. The inflamation/pain/tension from the elbow seems to extend down to my forearm and up my tricep, including the back side of my shoulder and in my neck. Has anyone else noticed this in their experience with tendonitis? Any physio-therapists in the community that can talk smart about how muscles/tendons/ligaments etc are connected? Could Neck/Shoulder massages help alleviate / prevent tendonitis?
ANYWAYS, sorry if this rambled on, but tendonitis sucks, and it gives you a lot to think/talk/commisserate about. I'd love to see RedRiverClimbing.com provide a solid repository full of quality anecdotes and links to reputable info sources for the prevention and treatment of medial epicondylitis. (Though SCIN may have that completely covered with the link to the Colin McNulty/Todd Scott respources,http://www.colinmcnulty.com/blog/2008/0 ... ondylitis/) I bet there's too many blockheads like me out there without the intelligence or self-control to worry about preventing tendonitis unless the community over-emphasizes it.
Kris, I'd love to hear more about how youve been using the Flexbar. How long? How have you used it? What makes you think its been effective?
Andrew and Bcombs, where'd you guys learn about sleeping with your arms straight to prevent/recover from tendonitis? Is this anecdotal, our are there studies to back it up? It's an interesting idea!
I just came back from ~3 months completely off of climbing to let my Tendonitis lighten up.
BACKSTORY:
I was glad to be climbing a bunch this Summer (all in the gym), and felt like I was really excited to be feeling stronger. Towards the end of summer, i started pushing it and overdoing it. On top of already frequent gym visits (~4 times a week, probably 15 hours/week avg of time spent in gym) I really overdid it one day. I spent an hour or two rope climbing stuff about two or three letter grades below my limit, then bouldered casually for about an hour, then got really psyched on a problem that was at my limit. At this point I didn't feel injured, just tired. I probably gave more than a dozen tries on the problem with almost no effective rest between goes (think 1 to 5 minutes, usually). Finally got the problem, and even though I felt tired, I felt strong, and psyched. I left the gym feeling tired, but not at all injured.
The next day I felt stiff, but still not injured. It wasn't until the next time I tried to climb that I realized I'd eff'ed up. A couple days after overdoing it, I got on something 2 number grades (8 letter grades) well below my limit. I could barely hold on to rest jugs without major discomfort bordering sharp pain. That was it for the day.
I tried to climb a few more times in the following days with the same result. Finally admitted to myself I'd developed a mild but persistent medial epicondylitis.
THERAPY/ REST:
I decided I was going to rest the elbow completely until it felt back to 99%. No climbing, no pullups, only very light activity with occasional low weight reverse wrist curls. If an activity caused any elbow pain, I didn't do it. I took Advil when my elbow felt stiff, and sometimes just because I was thinking about it. Tried to massage it often, but I certainly wasn't disciplined about it, and hardly ever iced it. I started jogging a lot more to stay active and also promote blood flow. No visits to a PT, but lots of looking around online for recommended therapy and lots of talking to friends who'd nursed tendonitis as well.
RECOVERY:
It's been about 4 months since the day I overdid it. The time away from climbing was a nice emotional break from a very addiciting and life-consuming activity, but I was psyched to feel well enough to return. I spent a week or two climbing nothing that was anywhere near my limit (think 8s and 9s instead of 12s). I still felt very slight stiffness, but it felt more like an atrophy thing that inflamation. After a few weeks of very casual climbing I started pushing the grade again. After ~3 weeks of that I feel like I'm getting back to where I was before the injury, but I still try to be very cautious and aware of how my elbow is responding to climbing at any difficult.
LESSONS LEARNED:
In hindsight, the tendonitis developed not because I was climbing, but because I was climbing too much, and with no discipline. The theory is entirely anecdotal, but I think that when my back muscles got tired from climbing all day, my tendon's started taking even more of the strain, and that's while they had already been worked hard that day. (In addition to the tendonitis, a feeling like some muscle/tendon/cord was out of place or loose around the back bottom of the shoulder/armpit -- if you put your left thumb in your right armpit and grasp that lump of muscle/tendons on the backside, thereabouts.)
There seem to be tons of suggestions for how to recover from tendonitis, and all forms of therapy, but I didn't see anything while researching that was a magic bullet, quick fix. The sound advice was always RICE. There seem to be plenty of expensive measures offered, but no really strong case for anything other than time-off and trying not to aggravate the inflamation.
So I think the key take-away is to focus on and preach prevention rather than recovery.
Preventative Rules I'm now living by:
1) Learn to take it easy. Climb and push grades without overdoing it. You only get stronger while resting.
2) Be paranoid about tendonitis. Warm up, stretch, exercise opposing muscles, etc...
3) Don't climb when tired or sore or in pain. Even tired back or core muscles seem to make it more likely that I'm going to bit unwarranted strain on the medial epicondyl
QUESTIONS FOR THE COMMUNITY:
1) Given that Medial Epicondylitis seems to be one of the most common injury among climbers, is there any single source/repository of information on RRC.com or elsewhere (a book specifically about Medial Epicondylitis) that people have found very informative and useful? (Think quality college biology textbook, only specifically for tendons and tendonitis, ideally medial epicondylitis specifically)
2) The thing I was wondering the whole time I was on the disabled list was that I feel like I almost never hear about pro (or even elite but not pro) climbers being disabled by tendonitis. Falls, broken bones, etc, sure... Does anyone have any theories and/or evidence about this? Are the elite just genetically less predisposed to tendonitis, and that's part of why they climb so hard? Are the elite more disciplined? They seem to climb more and climb harder than other climbers, I'd expect you'd be more likely to hear about injuries from climbers in the v10-v15 range rather than the v0-v9 range, but I definitely feel like per capita I hear more about injuries from average joe rather than perenial dirtbags or the elite, regardless of age, experience, etc.
3) When my neck is sore, my elbow seems to be flaring up more than usual, and vice versa. The inflamation/pain/tension from the elbow seems to extend down to my forearm and up my tricep, including the back side of my shoulder and in my neck. Has anyone else noticed this in their experience with tendonitis? Any physio-therapists in the community that can talk smart about how muscles/tendons/ligaments etc are connected? Could Neck/Shoulder massages help alleviate / prevent tendonitis?
ANYWAYS, sorry if this rambled on, but tendonitis sucks, and it gives you a lot to think/talk/commisserate about. I'd love to see RedRiverClimbing.com provide a solid repository full of quality anecdotes and links to reputable info sources for the prevention and treatment of medial epicondylitis. (Though SCIN may have that completely covered with the link to the Colin McNulty/Todd Scott respources,http://www.colinmcnulty.com/blog/2008/0 ... ondylitis/) I bet there's too many blockheads like me out there without the intelligence or self-control to worry about preventing tendonitis unless the community over-emphasizes it.
Kris, I'd love to hear more about how youve been using the Flexbar. How long? How have you used it? What makes you think its been effective?
Andrew and Bcombs, where'd you guys learn about sleeping with your arms straight to prevent/recover from tendonitis? Is this anecdotal, our are there studies to back it up? It's an interesting idea!
Re: Tendinitis
I bet you would have recovered will still climbing full time if you slept with your arms straight. I only have anecdotal evidence, but I don't know of anyone who it hasn't worked for, but I do know a few people who refused to do it. They still suffer through tendonitis.
Living the dream
Re: Tendinitis
I have tennis elbow in both elbows and my threapist gave me excercises to help and it worked. Try using threabands they are great! Build up you forearms to take the stress from your elbows. I still get flare-ups but not like it was.