HOW TO AVOID GETTING TENNIS ELBOW

 Tennis elbow (Lateral Epicondylitis) is caused by repetitive movements that strain the elbow tendon. The elbow tendon becomes inflamed or damaged and feels like an ache along the elbow. Sometimes the pain shoots down your forearm. Many tennis students get it as they are learning the sport. For some, tennis elbow becomes a long ordeal, comes back after periods of recovery, and makes playing tennis less pleasurable. I had it a few times, but after I began understanding technical fundamentals better, elbow pain never came back to haunt me.

There may be several factors that explain why you are getting tennis elbow and one root cause underneath all the other reasons. If you are straining your arm repetitively, then it means your body is not supporting your swing.

Let’s break down what it means to use your arm versus using your body to hit a ball. It is trivial to state, but you’re hitting a tennis ball that is traveling with some force. The ball is stiff and does not weigh much but it can feel heavy if your opponent or training partner hits with lots of spin and speed. If you hit the tennis ball without transferring your bodyweight, then you’re making your arm work alone. One arm weighs about 5 to 6 percent of the average person’s total body weight. That is a significant difference in how much mass will travel against the ball. If you can play tennis without making your arm absorb the impact of the ball alone, you will give your elbow more support and make it less likely to inflame your tendon.

But you should also pay attention to other factors that may aggravate your elbow tendon. [Click For More]