I came down with some fierce tennis elbow in early January. I triggered it from either a month of snow shoveling and/or some light dips/pull-ups I added to my workout. Sharp, sharp pain comes and goes. I’ve minimized use (which is hard because the snow hasn’t stopped in the Chicago area), iced it, accupunctured it, massaged it, some NSAIDs when it gets really bad. From what I’ve read and what my doc told me, this might take awhile. Two months have passed and there isn’t any improvement. For those of you who have suffered through this, or those of you who treat this, do you think some light swimming will delay recovery? I think if I’m careful with my stroke I can minimize stress on the elbow, almost coast with that arm, and get some upper body exercise. Thoughts?
I’m just getting over some elbow pains described as Tennis Elbow.
Hurt it in January, kept swimming with it for another 4 weeks. I then took about 10 days off of swimming and came back. I had a friend that is a PT look at it and worked out some spongy tissue he found, hurt like heck while he was working on it.
Anywho, when I got back to swimming I had taken it easy for another 4 weeks and I’m just getting back into hard workouts again. I layed off the paddles to keep the stress off my elbow but when I got back to using them I kept the effort easy and I think my elbow is getting stronger. I’m probably back 95% now.
jaretj
I didn’t really knew how I got them, but it was made worse from hanging on to the pool deck during open turns. Anyway, did PT time… ice, strengthening, etc… Significant tool was the Theraband Flexbar for Tyler Twist exercises.3 sets of 3x50 twists. You can increase the frequency as you get stronger.
It was a 3 month recovery for me. I stopped swimming for a month and then had two months with easy swimming, definitely no paddles. I did some strengthening exercises recommended by my Physio. I wore an elbow support most of the time.
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It was then perfect for 12 months until it flared up again after doing exercises in the gym. So I am now back to square one.
Good luck.
Is the pain in the elbow or forearm? I can’t tell you specifically about swimming. But tennis elbow as it relates to tennis is generally micro tares in the muscles in the forearm, and deep tissue massage and stretching can usually eliminate the issue while still doing most activity as long as the pain is bearable.
I can only relay my dad’s experiences, but he is an avid 4.0 USTA tennis addict and swimming is what he does when his tennis elbow flares up. He is such an animal that when he fractured his wrist he never new it, just knew it was sore. So he kept playing and made little adjustments to his grip pressure which caused him to get tennis elbow w/o every having an injury in 40 years of tennis. Just can’t get rid of it now it creeps up a couple of times a year for a few weeks.
I got tennis elbow from swimming too much with paddles and it took me 3 months to be able to get back in the pool and to this day I still have a bit of soreness at times… When I got back in the pool I did not use paddles at all for quite a while and that did seem to help and even now I limit my paddles to at most 500 meters a workout…
Hope this helps…
Joel
The way I understand it, you get tendonitis when you lose strength and you strain your tendons supporting the load. As a heavy construction carpenter, in my forties I had tendonitis in my elbows so bad that it would wake me up at night. Those boney hooks inside the elbow were swollen and sticking out. I saw doctors, wore the bands, iced, used ibuprofen and had acupuncture which really helped but never got rid of it until I started swimming at 48 years old. I think it’s because I built my strength back up and it gradually faded away. It never bothered me again.
If you drop your elbow before the start of the catch and push down on the water instead of pulling forward then that would probably aggravate your tennis elbow.
Tim
Thanks everyone.
The pain is mainly in the pointy part of the elbow and then some times radiates out to the forearm about an inch or two. I suspect a gradual loss of strength and getting older (49) with the repeated snow shoveling and dips/pullups was enough to cause this. I will try a light swim this afternoon and relax the arm during the pull and see how it goes.
Ditch the pull ups yesterday. They are the direct cause for me. About every two years I get the itch to start doing them again. This year I started with just 2 and sure as shit, the tendinitis feeling appeared after the second round.
I have some long term elbow issues. Swimming is fine unless I use paddles, they seem to aggravate it.
Any sort of swimming stroke where your arms come out of the water and then back in can cause tennis elbow over time, especially the freestyle and backstroke.
The angle at which your arm comes out of the water and back plus the rotation at your elbow can cause issues.
I came across a post that might help you out.
http://www.tenniselbowtips.com/blog/swimming-strokes-that-are-bad-for-tennis-elbow-pain/
Hope this helps.
Mike
The way I understand it, you get tendonitis when you lose strength and you strain your tendons supporting the load. As a heavy construction carpenter, in my forties I had tendonitis in my elbows so bad that it would wake me up at night. Those boney hooks inside the elbow were swollen and sticking out. I saw doctors, wore the bands, iced, used ibuprofen and had acupuncture which really helped but never got rid of it until I started swimming at 48 years old. I think it’s because I built my strength back up and it gradually faded away. It never bothered me again.
Swimming is such a great form of exercise:)
Used to be a serious tennis player in my youth and played on my college team. Developed tennis elbow in my late 30’s. Fought it a number of years, with support straps, cortisone shots, long periods of rest and PT. Couldn’t get over it and eventually had to give up the game. Also had to stop playing golf for a couple of years. My pain was trigger by the extension of the elbow and rotation of my forearm.
Never had a problem with swimming bothering it. If I have form problems with my freestyle, I feel it in my shoulders, not my elbows
Mark