Around 2004 I started to climb indoors a lot – as in 4 times a week or more. As you might expect, my grades started to creep upwards but at the very same time I developed a nasty case of Golfer’s Elbow. That deep pain on the inner side of your elbow (the fancy word being medial epicondylitis) which only seems to get deeper and more excruciating the more you lock-off or do pull-ups. Know the feeling?
Like many other climbers I sought the advice of the internet and a series of physios. I tried the usual methods; rest, ice, hot-cold treatment, massage, anti-inflammatory medicine, postural correcting exercises and lots of antagonist work. I must have spent a good £1000 or so seeing different people, buying books and feeding my growing Ibuprofen habit. Unfortunately though, nothing seemed to hit the spot. Every person I asked recommended some kind of combination of the above, but I started to get frustrated as the pain continued to get worse. Eventually I made the hard decision to take some time out from climbing and training as I knew no other solution.
Just as I’d made this decision I coincidentally got talking to one of the GB Senior Team members called Drew Haigh (I was managing the team at the time) about my plight and he showed me an exercise a yoga teacher had showed him for Golfer’s Elbow. Drew sounded really convinced about this “magical stretch” that he had been taught, but I remained sceptical as nothing had worked until this point. I got the beta off Drew at a training session and guess what………. 2 weeks later my Golfer’s Elbow had totally disappeared! I couldn’t believe it. Two years of pain had been removed in 2 weeks.
The Stretch
I have no idea what this exercise is called, but hopefully with the aid of the following photos and a little description some people out there may benefit in the same way as I did. I’ve shown this stretch to a number of people I’ve coached over the years and it has to be said that it’s not always successful – it’s seems to work best when none of the conventional approaches (physio, antagonists, NSAIDS) work. Give it a try though – you’ll only have wasted a few minutes if it doesn’t work.
The start pose - the position that you’re aiming to hold with your arms is that shown in the picture below. You want your palms facing outwards and for your elbows to almost touch in the middle – it feels quite awkward to hold this position. You should note that in the correct position your elbows should be about the height of your belly-button and inside the line of your body i.e. arms not lying down the side of your body. Got that so far?
The finish pose – ok, so with that in mind, you now have to perform that same arm positioning, but on the ground lying on your front! This means that you’ll be lying on top of your arms and your bodyweight is forcing your arms and elbows into a nice straight/open position. Note that it’s really important that you do this exercise on a solid floor (not soft matting) as you don’t want to be able to hyper-extend your elbows. In this position you should feel a nice stretch – if it feels painful, then stop! I find looking straight at the ground in front of me or to one side is most comfortable with the neck.
The movements – once you’ve gained confidence with the initial positioning and you’re happy that there’s no undue pain, then you can try raising one leg at a time (I do reps of 10) which results in the front of your hip bone pushing into the back of your forearm giving extra stretch. The leg needs to be raised out 10inches or so off the ground and I do just 10 reps on each leg. Once done, I get up off the floor shake my arms out, and get back to whatever I was doing 2 minutes earlier!
Below is a quick shot of the back of the forearm to show you the point at which it makes contact with the front of your hip bone once you’re lying on top of your arms.
If this helps one person, then it’s all worth it! Please do pass on the information if you find it useful and I only came across it by word of mouth from Drew. I owe you big time Drew!
Just started this today, been suffering from lowish level golfers since upping pull ups and lock offs this year. Eased off on both of these exercises so it’ll b interesting to see how it goes.
Rich
Superb advice Tom, worked like a dream for me too. Owe you a pint for this one
Thanks Tom!! Just when i thought i tried pretty much everything!
Thanks a lot for taking the time to share this knowledge Tom! I’ve been doing the stretch regularly since I first saw it on your blog. I’m confident now to say It’s definitely really helped my elbows – they’re the best they’ve been since early 2009 and by a fair margin too. So, thanks again!
Tom,
Big thanks for sharing this procedure.
A friend of mine suggested it is based on yoga Locust Pose Salabhasana.
I have been practicing it for weeks now and I can confirm it significantly eased back elbow pain
that I usually suffered in morning on next day after hard training session.
Big cheers!
Great article, this should certainly help. You are correct about your feelings about the common remedies. Rest is the most useless solution unless you plan not to use the arm anymore. It will heal but the instant you use it again, it will come back. Rest will cause the muscle to become weaker than before, and therefore amplifying the problem next time. I was a personal trainer for a few years and have been in the gym most of my life. I have had tendonitis in almost everyplace you can get it. It usually comes when the area is too weak for the activity. Most people get this type, in the gym, when they do curls because the forearm is too weak to handle the activity. Curls are fun, forearms are not, so they are weak from lack of use. Strengthen the forearm and the pain will go away, just as you described, very quickly. Include lightweight wrist curls. By lightweight I mean where you can do 50 reps or so and with little pain. Do this three times a week, include stretching as described and bang it’s gone in no time, completely. Sounds counter to what the doctors tell you but it works. Rest, ice, and heat can help correct the problem but they don’t fix why it happened in the first place. Good job on the article!!! This problem is too easy to solve to have people spending lots of money on it.
Thanks Tom, this has really helped. I have been using it as a way to cure my Golfers Elbow and part of my warm up and it is really working.
Warm-up? This is quite a stretching and I don’t think stretching forearms this way before any serious workout for climbing (bouldering, beastmaker, campus, and similar) is a good idea. It should be part of post-workout cool-down
Great blog Tom. I’m in the same position from too much paddling (canoes) but have Tennis Elbow which is the same problem but on the outer side of the elbow (lateral epicondylitis). Any ideas what exercise might work for this? I guess I need to find someone like Drew or his yoga teacher! Anyhow I will pass this onto my outdoor buddies who have medial epicondylitis. Cheers.
This plus forearm massage has worked better for me than anything else, including strengthening and pronator stretches.
Thanks for posting!
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Thanks for the advice! It seems to be working in my case
Hi Tom, could you tell me how many repetitions did you do during a day? Thanks
Hi Vaclav, two times per day.
Tom
Thanks, I’ll try it and hopefuly it will work.
Hi Tom Can you advise me what to do?
When I lay down on my hands my arm hurts a lot. Should I stop or less weight hand?
Hi Tomas, I’d suggest that you go and see your physio if you’re unsure. They may be qualified to help!