If muscles and tendons are repeatedly misused and overstrained over a longer period of time, then small damages add up to a large irritation, which can eventually lead to tennis elbow. Patients with such a problem often describe problems when mowing the lawn, spring-cleaning, or after long periods of overhead screwing or working. Besides tennis players, other sportsmen and professional groups, such as musicians, are also affected by tennis elbow. The aim of physiotherapy is to relieve the inflammation and irritation of the affected tendons and muscles and to improve their resilience. Illustration of tennis elbow: below – right forearm, muscles of the extensor side (dorsal side)
- Spoke shaft – Corpus radii
- Ellenschaft – Corpus ulnae
- Upper arm shaft – Corpus humeri
- Long spoke-side hand extensor -M. extensor carpi radialis longus
- Short spoke-side hand extensor -M. extensor carpi radialis brevis
- Long thumb spreader -M. abductor pollicis longus
- Short thumb extension -M. extensor pollicis brevis
- Long thumb extensor -M. extensor pollicis longus
- Elbow – Olecranon
- Gnarled muscle – M. anconeus
- Olecranon hand extensor -M. extensor carpi ulnaris
- Finger extender – M. extensor digitorum
- Little finger extensors – M. extensor digiti minimi
- Retaining ligament of the extensor tendons – Retinaculum musculorum extensorum
Exercises
Exercise with water bottle or dumbbell The hand, with the back of the hand facing down, of the affected arm (tennis elbow) holds a dumbbell. This is slowly moved up and down. In this way, the muscles are trained in an overcoming (concentric) and yielding (eccentric) way.
The tendons are trained without being overloaded by the slackening training. Exercise with towel Grab a towel shoulder-wide with your hands on the right and left and lead it in front of your body at shoulder height. Bend arms slightly at elbow joint.
Further exercises can be found under: Exercises for elbow pain
- Bend your wrists towards your body as much as possible (as when accelerating on a motorcycle)
- The hand of the side not affected (tennis elbow) twists the towel as far forward as possible. The wrist of the affected side remains standing
- Wrist of the affected side (tennis elbow) follows the other hand slowly forward in a period of 3 seconds. The muscles should slowly slow down the movement.
- In this position both wrists should be parallel to each other again.
From this end position, the starting position is resumed and started over again. Approx. 15 repetitions of this are performed.
