Tennis elbow frustrations

[mjd]

Cathe, I recall reading somewhere that you've had tennis elbow in the past. Just wondering what sort of workouts you did while you were recuperating and how you managed to maintain your strength gains without being able to do any upper body weights work. I miss my weights workouts!

 

[exercise-lover]

Have you tried the brace for tennis elbow? You can get it at Walgreens. It helped mine get better faster by stabilizing the tendons. It's easy to wear and even fits under sleeves.

 

[mjd]

Have you tried the brace for tennis elbow? You can get it at Walgreens. It helped mine get better faster by stabilizing the tendons. It's easy to wear and even fits under sleeves.

Yep, have been wearing the brace and have been having treatment for months now. Just getting frustrated with limited choice of workouts since I can't do any upper body weights workouts. I haven't even opened most of my Xtrain weights sets since I can't do them - waahhh!! How do I maintain upper body strength gains without lifting weights? Cathe if you read this, do you remember what sorts of workouts you did when you had tennis elbow?

 

[maddiesmum]

Sometimes you have to be ultra-patient, and stand still for a while to avoid falling back downhill again. Long term progress may require doing very little right now. If you cannot lift heavy weights or any weights at all for the upper body right now, then you have to accept that. To go against what your body is telling you risks making this situation much worse and making recuperation take months longer.

Sometimes, we suffer set backs. We ALL do, it's not just you. If you are an enthusiastic exercise lover, injuries are going to happen. It's not IF, it's WHEN.

You may lose strength gains in the upper body. But, you will get it back eventually. Having built strength once, you can always get it back. Muscles have memory. You build it back faster subsequently, faster than the time it took to build it originally.

What you need to figure out in the meanwhile is what to do to stay sane while the body heals. So, you do cardio and make movement patterns that are non-weight bearing and natural movements. Are you able to do planks? If you can bear the weight of your own body, then you can do yoga and planks, which will prevent excessive loss of strength. Can you swim? You could also think about investing now in different forms of exercise, that vary the stresses placed upon the body and the movement patterns of the arms, to avoid this problem surfacing again once healed. So: can you swim? It's excellent for upper and lower body and cardiovascular system, and the resistance is provided by the water itself. No weights needed. Can you do punches from kickboxing? If you can, then again, kickbox, boxing and martial arts (all of Cathe's MMA stuff from STS shock cardio series) are all ways to maintain strength while you heal.

Can you hold weights while you work the lower body? You may need to focus on lighter weights and higher reps for the lower body for a while, to avoid the strain on the elbows of holding 20 pound dumbbells, for example. Also, if you use the barbell across the shoulders for lower body work, this again puts less strain on the elbows.

Hope this helps,

Clare

 

[jacmar]

I too have been struggling with tennis elbow since October of 2012. Clare makes some excellent points, but the most important is patience. It took two months of no UB work at all for my elbow to feel next to no pain. Since then, do heavy LB work, but sub all heavy UB for either high rep/low weight or body weight workout. I use Horizontal Conditioning, Dream Body, Tonique and a little JNL UB work. I have lost a little bit of size but not much strength, but I am older (45) and have a good muscle base since I lifted heavy for so long.

Good luck.