Hi - hoping someone has some advise! For the past 7 years or so i've been putting up with a sore elbow, probably gained from playing too much when i was young, but its got to the point now where i can only really play once a week as it takes the rest of the week to recover to a point where i can play properly again. After playing, for the following day or 4 my inside elbow is very very sore and my strength and grip levels are affected. If i try to play a second time in a week it throbs to the point where smashes are half the power of normal and its all i think about during rallies! I have tried icing after play, stretching the arm out in various ways and massage but nothing seems to help it improve over time. I also stopped playing altogther for a few months when i had an operation but the moment i started playing again i was back to square one!!
maybe you should go see an Orthopedic Specialist, find out what's wrong with your elbow, then figure out what to do Hope you get better
This is abnormal. It's your stroke technique or your grip. You need to consult not a doctor but a coach, if you seriously intend to resolve this problem permanently.
Thanks for the replies. I agree its abnormal, i also think ignoring it hasnt really helped, but i'm a man and i used the 'it will get better soon' argument! I have been to the docs but they sent me for a massage and told me to rest it..... I never really thought about grip or technique, mainly because i was drilled and coached for many years and am not a frying pan merchant but definately worth checking out.
I meant grip size. Make sure your racket handle is the right size for your hand. When you squeeze it tight, your 4th and 3rd fingertips should just touch the thenar muscles of the palm. And also make sure you're not hitting shots with your elbow fully extended and locked out.
I think you need to find another doctor. It sounds like you've been given bad advice here. First of all, are you absolutely sure it's epicondylitis/golfer's elbow? How exactly did your doctor make the diagnosis? This is worrying. After some months' rest, it should have taken at least a few weeks to hurt yourself again! This suggests that there's something else in your lifestyle that puts stress on your tendon, so badminton isn't really the underlying cause of your injury but just a trigger. Or otherwise it isn't epicondylitis at all, but something else. What else do you use your playing arm for on a regular basis? Do you spend a lot of time typing or using a computer mouse? If this has been going on for years, then a good doctor or other medical professonal should take it a bit more seriously: "rest a bit and have a massage" really isn't good enough in this situation.
Both tennis elbow and golfer's elbow can be treated quite easily and may I add successfully. Just get a chinning bar and fix it above your bathroom doorway. Use the bar as a hanging bar instead of for chinning up. Start slowly and hang your whole body with arms fully stretched for 30 secs each session and repeat ten times in a day. Increase each session time progressively to 1 minute, then 2 minutes and eventually to 3 minutes each session. This hanging of your whole body not only banishes tennis and golfs elbow, it also strengthens your whole shoulders, spine, trunk and eliminates back pain. In a few weeks you will see real solid and lean muscles on your shoulders, upper arms and back, which will come in handy for powerful badminton shots.
Could be multitude of issues ere. The main thing I could say would help fix this is intensive strength training on the arm. This would include the wrist (flexion, extension, Ulna and radial deviation and pronation and supination), the elbow it self (flexion and extension) and the shoulder (flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, internal and external rotation). U will need to be creative and give badminton a miss a month ish or more while doing this but in my eyes u have no other option. Go on youtube and type these terms in as well as the body part. eg How to strengthen internal rotation on shoulder etc etc
Thanks for the replies, I think the consensus is that a visit to a specialist would be a good start so that's first to do. I,ve also been searching the net for different Techniques for stretching and strengthening, just invested in a Powerball as I've seen various articles which comment that it may help recovery while building flexibility and strength so I'll see if it lives up to the hype!!I'm not certain that it's golfers elbow but my pain centres around the medial Epicondyle and seems to inflame with playing, that was the initial docs assessment and seems consistent when reading on the net but still...may be something else!!
There are very specific movements that are used to diagnose the different sorts of epicondylitis. Things along the lines of: bend the elbow to a certain angle, rotate the forearm to a certain position, flex or extend the wrist against resistance or squeeze something, should cause pain in a certain spot. If your doctor hasn't done something like that, then you need to find someone else who can check the diagnosis carefully. As a general principle, strength exercises are things you do after a period of rest, once any pain or inflammation has subsided. So if you're in pain at the moment, you might need to take a week or two off badminton before starting any strengthening program. Also, if it really is golfer's elbow, then anti-inflammatory medication might help a little. There are things you can buy over the counter: go to a chemist's shop and ask the pharmacist to recommend something. Good luck with all this.
Echoing Alex's reply: if your elbow is painful, then you should be focusing on therapy and not strength training. Strength training may be useful later. If you get too aggressive with strength training too early, you can make the inflammation worse. A recent development in treating tennis/golfer's elbow is an exercise called the Tyler Twist, which uses a flexible rubber bar (a Theraband Flexbar). There's strong evidence to recommend this for tennis elbow, but for golfer's elbow the evidence isn't in yet. Nevertheless, it might be worth a look (it's what I would try).
