Looks like I have got epicondylitis (lateral) or more commonly known as tennis elbow as a result of climbing and bouldering and no doubt being over 40. This is now over 4 months with no improvement only getting worse. I stopped climbing pretty much once I realised something was up and have been icing the arm plus now wear a band support. Most likely will bite the bullet and see a sports clinic but I am wondering if others on here have any similar experiences with this and if so how long did the symptoms persist….. only good news please I’m a pessimist at the best of times.

I had the same and for the same reason. Fannied around with various remedies for far too long and eventually got the cortisone injection. It was fookin painful but it cleared up in days never to return. If it ever did, I’d cut the crap and go straight to that.

Have had it for years Donk as a result of multiple tears to the radial head.
Get a Metolius Grip Saver and USE IT!
There are some very specific stretches too but not easy to explain.
Will find you the link when I get chance.
You’ll have good days and bad – working your arm in the opposite to a closed grip is one of the main ways to combat it.

My advice based on my experience would be to find a physio with experience of climbing injuries. I had about three or four years with problems in both elbows, solved by a mixture of massage, stretching and antagonistic exercises. If you’re in the Leeds/Wakefield area I can recommend a very good one.

http://www.drjuliansaunders.com/resources/feature_articles/dodgy_elbows/

Worth a read, don’t agree with all of it. I particularly think that the level of resistance/weight in the strengthening exercises is geared towards an elite climber, and too much for a hobby climber.

Currently suffering with this. Not sure how it started and it has periodically flared up now and then over the past two years but it seems to be persistent this time around and has been for 3 weeks.

So will read the link and watch this thread with interest. A physio did suggest a stretching exercise (she gave me while treating an achilles issue) but it’s not really made an impact. My doctor, who perhaps wouldn’t refer me to the morgue if I was dead, told me to look for exercises on the internet.

I feel my grip is affected. It seems to be painful from elbow along the top of my forearm. It hurts to straighten the arm up if sat at my desk typing working.

I’m riding still but it’s noticeable all the time and feels weakened.

Hmmm.. This is what I feared, I have checked out some climbing websites which have various excersises to perform. One had a climber who uses a stick with a weight on and rotates the stick gently using resistance. He claims this sorted the problem out very quickly but I’m sceptical until I see someone in the know as I don’t want to worsen this.

What activity causes pain – just climbing, or bluddy everything?

See a physio, I was referred by my GP. A couple of simple exercises 3 times a day for about 6 weeks helped mine. It still recurs but the exercises nip it in the bud. Only downside for me was my young physio’s repeated use of the word “degenerative”.

Same issue here, brought on from years of hanging out of trees with a chainsaw and aggravated by bouldering.

I found the weight on a stick stretch helped alleviate a lot of my pain, and its the first thing I go back to if I start to have issues.

I had this from climbing. Was eased by long warm up and warm down , stretching the wrists particularly and forearms, also shoulders . I was told (possible Bulls”t) that the pain was caused by problems elsewhere.

I had it for about 5 months after getting back into playing Badminton following a years break.
I had the cortisone injection two weeks ago. The pain the first day was so intense that I barely sleep. However by day three the pain has gone and I’d say I’m about 95% back to normal.

I’ve now made the unhappy decision not to play racquet sports again, or climb etc. I’d rather be able to ride my bike pain free, canoe with my father and be able to pick up my new daughter without wincing.

I’m 37 so relatively young but old enough, now, to know that the best course of action going forward is to avoid those activities that could aggravate it.

Wish I’d had this sense 10-15 years ago and stopped lifting big weights now that my shoulders are **** 🙁

Get a piece of tube and some webbing and a krab
You want to roll the tube in your hands palms down so it raises the weights you clipped to the krab.
Then lower it really really slowly and repeat till you can’t.
I made one at work for just this.

Suffered similar myself – I’m 47 and various forms of tendonitis seem to be the curse of the active 40 something – yoga etc seems to be the key to managing it.

I had pretty good results with the following:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=3614

solved by a mixture of massage, stretching and antagonistic exercises

Looking at the last link, it was eccentric rather than antagonistic exercises I meant.

yeah – eccentric exercises seem to be the ‘goto’ exercise for tendonitis

I was told (possible Bulls”t) that the pain was caused by problems elsewhere.

In every climber I know with elbow problems, including myself, it’s been the shoulders and neck that have been the root cause.

I had recurring problems for several years. I did all the eccentric exercises imaginable and just gave myself bad wrists. I saw three different physios who massaged my elbows, stuck needles in them, fired ultrasound at them, gave me stretches and exercises etc etc and got nowhere. Then I went to a physio who looked at the way I stood and sat and gave me a couple of shoulder exercises to do. My elbows were fine a couple of weeks later. Similar story for three friends.

Check your shoulders!

Had some tennis elbow and got rid with percussive massage followed by exercise with grip trainers and also those powerball things.

Ironically the guy giving me the 3 sessions of heavy duty percussive massage also had tennis elbow and was complaining about not being able to play badminton anymore.

Every time I get some muscle issue like this, such as piriformis syndrome, then the remedy is always the same – but depending on where it is I might be able to use something like a foam roller.

Doing the eccentric exercises in the Saunders article linked to above helped my elbows get better quite quickly – feels like it’s actually making them worse but helps in a few weeks.

Over the longer term, since I turned 40 I’ve had to pay a lot more attention to complementary exercises. If I just climb all the time I get painful elbows and shoulders. I have to be doing a few sets of pushups in heavy training weeks to balance things out and stay pain-free.

This is of course anecdotal but it’s really only doing what we all know we should, and I’m climbing at the same standard as I was 20 years ago so I’m pretty happy with doing it.

I had it for more than a year……………..Was told not to ride my bike which I ignored but switched from a rigid carbon fork to a suspension fork. Noticed that after a decent length ROAD ride on my flat bar road bike the pain disappeared for about 3 days so I kept off the pain killers, put the rigid fork back on the MTB and got on with riding. It seems that the constant vibration and elbow movement with a rigid fork stimulates the blood flow, as did the very successful acupuncture but you need that at least a couple of times a week.

I managed to get both tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow at the same time. I tried lots of physios and lots of exercises. In the end I had a PRP injection and that fixed it really quickly

IMO a good Physio is worth every penny every time. I also rate a osteopath I see fairly often. Slightly different approach to my physio but she’s really very good.

Having said that my elbows used to hurt when climbing hard. A few press-ups between sessions would quickly stop the pain.

Where are you? I’m sure someone can recommend someone.

I had the opposite (golfers elbow) from climbing. Tried everything and then started doing the ‘do 100 press ups’ thing – amazingly this completely resolved it! It’s an eccentric exercise for climbing so def worth a go. It went from so bad I couldn’t climb to gone in about 5 weeks of doing push ups. Side benefit is that I became awesome at press ups!

I’d agree with Brown

Basicallt Tendonitus stopped my climbing career

But I’m now sure that alot of pain was from shoulder and upper back

I can now pull on my arms again but the weight gain and cowardice mean its low grades for now

Thanks for the replies and advise.
It looks as though my “warm up is for poofs” mentality has bitten me on the arse here.
I will now go and book an appointment with a physio. I’m in Milton Keynes and we have a place called the blackberry clinic which specialises in sports injuries so unless there’s a cheaper sole practice around I’ll start there.

Did anyone continue to climb through this using the exercises or is it a case of rest until the pain subsides?

Get a piece of tube and some webbing and a krab
You want to roll the tube in your hands palms down so it raises the weights you clipped to the krab.
Then lower it really really slowly and repeat till you can’t.
I made one at work for just this.

I would echo the above advice- eccentric loading of the wrist extensors (which share a common origin at the lateral epicondyle) seems to be highly effective for tennis elbow. I would advise finding a youtube video to make sure you get the right idea as it’s hard to explain, but essentially the movement you want is forearm parallel to floor, palm facing down. Bend your hand at the wrist so that your palm is facing forward as if your we’re directing someone to ‘stop’ and then slowly, under load (a theraband or similar is perfect for this) bend your wrist so that your palm is facing back towards you (in a ‘hello ducky’ kind of a motion, but slowly).

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E7sWpDKsF_g[/video]

This shows the move using a weight. I personally feel that if you are able to find a theraband so that you can do this with your fingers outstretched, then all the better, but this is certainly a good place to start. Use a bucket if water if you can’t find a dumbbell.