Tennis Elbow

Right around Perry this year, I started noticing some tenderness in my right arm. It was worse when I focused on the 1911, but it was there anytime I shot the pistol more than 50 rounds or so. I also noticed that strings which felt like 100s were turning into 95s and 96s and my 20 shot strings with the 22 had dropped from 198s to 192s. I figured it was a slump and started dryfiring more.

It took me until the past few weeks to realize that I was suffering from tendonitis. I plan to contact a pt person, but in the meantime I did some reading on eccentric exercises and bought a couple of theraband rods to see if they help. The specific exercise is the tyler twist.

By the way a sedentary office life behind a computer definitely doesn't help.

Do any if you have advice on what worked for you, I still have to find a PT person who can help me.

Mike

After Perry I had both a shoulder problem and tendonitis in my shooting arm. Twelve weeks of PT eventually fixed the shoulder, but the tennis elbow persisted.  Additional PT on the elbow helped but it's still not 100%.  I've found that one of those large Salon Pas patches on the way to the range, followed by a rub down of DMSO at the range gets me through a day of shooting.

As for the PT person, three times since the early 70's I've had PT for my shoulder.  The first was with the initial injury by Army PT's back when I was young, dumb and didn't know any better. The second time was about 10 years ago and I found a PT person who took a very aggressive approach to treatment, as did the therapist this past summer. PT works but you need to find the right therapist.

I worked with one. He had me keep shooting + forearm work outs.  It only comes back if I slack on working out....so next year will suck

Yes, get thee to PT.  I too work in front of a computer all day, and I aggravated my shoulder shoveling snow (last year)... so I compensated my putting more weight on my elbow.  You can infer how that turned out.  I had to take a break from shooting and finished my indoor leagues shooting weak handed.  After 6 months I started again, but found I could only tolerate the recoil from a 22... yes, a 22 does recoil (I can still feel it) and I can judge the velocity of a 22 cartridge within 50fps.

The PT person will likely do same massages of the area, recommend exercises, etc.  Doing the exercises gets quite tiring, but hey, if you have the discipline to dry fire, it ought to be easy.

Like Christopher said, if you slack on the PT exercises, you'll know it.  Its been a year for me and I still need to do the exercises (more often than I am).

I don't know the name of the various stretches, but I have a therapy band, trap one end with my
foot, the ohter is wrapped around my hand and I bend my wrist or rotate my forearm in various directions.  For strength I was told to do (leaning) pushups against a bench and arm presses with dumbbells.  You do NOT want to be doing strength exercises right now.

Good luck.  Rest your elbow in the short term so that you do HAVE a long term...

The best advice is to lay off shooting. Other than that, anti-inflammatory meds, like aspirin, ice after shooting and hand and arm (tendon) stretching exercises as a warm-up before each shooting session (after you are healed). The bands keep it from hurting, but don't help rehabilitation.

IBE Mike wrote:The best advice is to lay off shooting. Other than that, anti-inflammatory meds, like aspirin, ice after shooting and hand and arm (tendon) stretching exercises as a warm-up before each shooting session (after you are healed). The bands keep it from hurting, but don't help rehabilitation.

"Shooter’s elbow is tendinitis, however even that name is contentious. The “itis” in tendinitis implies inflammation which biopsies reveal is NOT present. This makes tendinitis a misnomer. More modern terms are tendinosis and tendinopathy. I have actually heard people refer to tennis elbow as lateral epicondylopathy, but correct or not “epicondylopathy” is a ridiculous word and I’m not going to use it."


https://www.absolutept.com/shooters-elbow/

But But but. Your not going to use "it" but you got it twice into the same sentence.

Chris, thanks a lot for that link. The definitions and information that he provides are very valuable. He training regimens also makes sense to me.

My pain is manageable. Particularly when shooting the lighter Benelli MP90. I have dumb els, though I have not used them for many months. I think that there might be a relationship.

Several years ago I had hand surgery. When attending PT I spoke to my PT and shared my life long battle with elbow pain/tendonitis. Even though I had taken a long break from shooting I still suffered from it. He said I ptobably had micro tears in the tendon. It will give the same painful feeling but is not inflamation. So I've pretty much been dealing with it since the early 90's.
Jon

Jon Eulette wrote:Several years ago I had hand surgery. When attending PT I spoke to my PT and shared my life long battle with elbow pain/tendonitis. Even though I had taken a long break from shooting I still suffered from it. He said I ptobably had micro tears in the tendon. It will give the same painful feeling but is not inflamation. So I've pretty much been dealing with it since the early 90's.
Jon

At your young age get a HGH script  from one of those Cali youth clinics. Plus the wife will love you for it

"At your young age "

ut oh

The Theraband rods, red and green arrived, Thursday. I also have a wrist roller 4 lb weight on a string attached to a stick that you roll with both eccentric and concentric motions, that seems positive for pain relief. Muscle burn is way better than pain in my view.

I will be contacting the Tennis Coach at the University I attended for advice in PT practitioners. The team consistently wins at Conference and NCAA regionals.

I fought tennis elbow for three years. Shots, exercises, bands, PT.... Until I could not pick up a cup of coffee.
I finally figured I had nothing to loose by having it fixed. I found a good surgeon and had the work done. I have been completely pain free for four years now. I wish someone had told me after a year or so  if all the treatments fail, just fix it. I would not have waisted nearly as much time.

Good Luck and Merry Christmas

RThatcher wrote:I fought tennis elbow for three years. Shots, exercises, bands, PT.... Until I could not pick up a cup of coffee.
I finally figured I had nothing to loose by having it fixed. I found a good surgeon and had the work done. I have been completely pain free for four years now. I wish someone had told me after a year or so  if all the treatments fail, just fix it. I would not have waisted nearly as much time.

Good Luck and Merry Christmas

What did surgeon do?

My understanding is that they cut out the bad part of the tendon and then reattached what was remaining.
It was very successful.

RThatcher wrote:My understanding is that they cut out the bad part of the tendon and then reattached what was remaining.
It was very successful.

One of my sons-in-law had similar surgery for his thumb. He is recovering now. His injury to the tendon was probably due to overuse of the thumb on a smart phone.

Christopher Miceli wrote:

IBE Mike wrote:The best advice is to lay off shooting. Other than that, anti-inflammatory meds, like aspirin, ice after shooting and hand and arm (tendon) stretching exercises as a warm-up before each shooting session (after you are healed). The bands keep it from hurting, but don't help rehabilitation.

"Shooter’s elbow is tendinitis, however even that name is contentious. The “itis” in tendinitis implies inflammation which biopsies reveal is NOT present. This makes tendinitis a misnomer. More modern terms are tendinosis and tendinopathy. I have actually heard people refer to tennis elbow as lateral epicondylopathy, but correct or not “epicondylopathy” is a ridiculous word and I’m not going to use it."


https://www.absolutept.com/shooters-elbow/

Sorry. My advice is based from an old article in Shooting Sports magazine by Dr. Michael Keyes (sports medicine doctor) and my own dated experience. Good to see that there are better alternatives. I probably should keep my old outdated ideas to myself.

I've found the Absolute Physical Therapy Shooters Elbow article at www.absolutept.com/shooters-elbow very helpful since I first ran across it in November. A better set of exercises than I had run across in the past and some good arguments on why some are performed and some others are omitted. I like that the writer is a competitive shooter and shoots air pistol.

I started shooting four years ago and managed to get shooters elbow very quickly through dry fire trying to emulate Keith Sanderson. I'd often ride home from a 2700 holding an ice pack. For desktop computers I use a trackball left handed to protect my shooting arm (drives my co-workers nuts when they have to sit at my desk). The Absolute Physical Therapy exercises have been very helpful in my case in keeping the pain to a minimal level. I also have noticed my hold has gotten better/tighter, but it is easier to get a tremor by gripping too tight.

BE Mike wrote:

Christopher Miceli wrote:

IBE Mike wrote:The best advice is to lay off shooting. Other than that, anti-inflammatory meds, like aspirin, ice after shooting and hand and arm (tendon) stretching exercises as a warm-up before each shooting session (after you are healed). The bands keep it from hurting, but don't help rehabilitation.

"Shooter’s elbow is tendinitis, however even that name is contentious. The “itis” in tendinitis implies inflammation which biopsies reveal is NOT present. This makes tendinitis a misnomer. More modern terms are tendinosis and tendinopathy. I have actually heard people refer to tennis elbow as lateral epicondylopathy, but correct or not “epicondylopathy” is a ridiculous word and I’m not going to use it."


https://www.absolutept.com/shooters-elbow/

Sorry. My advice is based from an old article in Shooting Sports magazine by Dr. Michael Keyes (sports medicine doctor) and my own dated experience. Good to see that there are better alternatives. I probably should keep my old outdated ideas to myself.

The medical world is always moving forward

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Chase reminded me of a couple things I did.

My SUV has a center console that I can rest my right elbow on.  I bungee'd a small pillow to it,
so that it was a softer surface to rest on.  I also used a small pillow between my stomach and
forearm when I slept (on my side).  So my right arm was bent at 90 degrees with a pillow to prop
up my elbow while I slept to prevent it getting into an awkward position with pressure applied to it.
My PT thought that both ideas sounded good to him.

I did wear the elbow brace for a while, and then later just when I was doing physical chores (still do sometimes).  Never wore it sleeping, but then I had the elbow propped up as I wrote above.  I probably should have taken more ibuprofen than I did (personal choice, I don't like relying on medicine so that I don't build up a tolerance).

My PT recommended "Tiger Balm" instead of the Ben Gay (Walmart usually carries Tiger Balm).  Its more expensive, smells a bit better, but otherwise I didn't think it was any better or worse.

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Mike,
I struggled with golfers elbow and tennis elbow off and on for over 25 years.   These conditions flared up whenever I overdid the weight lifting or some other activity that my office bound body was not used to.  In the past, my solution was to lay off doing that activity for 6 months or so and the pain would go away.  When I retired and discovered Bullseye shooting the tennis elbow showed up again.  This time, I was hooked on Bullseye and laying off for 6 months was not an option.   So I went to see my doctor hoping for a PT prescription.  After checking me out, he said I had tennis elbow.  Then he said tennis elbow is a common condition and the PT for it is well documented on the internet.   He said I could go see a Physical Therapist, but I would probably do just as well to follow the exercises on the internet.  He also suggested I do the therapy for golfers elbow (inside of elbow) at the same time to balance the strength in my arms.  I followed his directions and in a few weeks had some relief.  In several months the pain was gone.  I still do the exercises several times per week and its been two years without pain. 
DJW

Three weeks of exercises and my condition is greatly improved. I have been using Thera band rods, my wtprist roller and some dumbbell exercises.

Overall the wrist roller seems to have the greatest effect. But that is just based on the before and after feelings.

I didn't see anyone recommend the Band-It.  While working as a mechanic I would get tennis AND golfers elbow so bad that I couldn't shift a manual transmission or turn a door knob with my right arm.

Band-it is the way to stabilize those tendons and let them heal.

https://www.amazon.com/Pro-Band-Braces-Therapeutic-Forearm/dp/B00CSDEDR8