Had some TE on one side from a few months back but been enjoying my riding so ignored it. Had a big off at Dyfi at the start of April and dislocated a finger on one hand and badly sprained the thumb joint on the other. Returned to riding too soon with grip strength down in both hands. Now got some properly painful tennis elbow on both sides (typing this on my phone is hurting, kept me awake half the night after riding last week) so I’m off the bike for a while.
Gutted as I have a new bike, trails are mint and I’m probably riding as well as I ever have but needs must.
I know recovery times can be protracted and I’m on with icing and massage, tell me your tennis elbow tails of woe. Any recommendations for gentle stretching exercises?

I found strengthening more beneficial than stretching. Wrist extensions and hanging from a pull up bar probably the best options for me YMMV.

Although sounds like you may have to rest a bit first. Really frustrating, especially this time of year, feel for you.

Seeing a physio also well worth it.

Yeah, they are proper inflamed at the moment, need to settle first.

I should really have said “tell me your tales of miraculous faster than expected recovery and how you did it”, that’s what I want to hear!

I always post this, because, as a climber, it makes a lot of sense and explains it to the layman pretty well.

Dodgy Elbows

Looking at your case, you seem to have nailed the problem – the injury forced you to overgrip with a different part of your hand, causing the overload and the injury on both sides.

Work out precisely which type of movements are tweaking it, for me it was lifting and pouring out of pans/kettle, and look at some controlled exercises to start strengthening it appropriately and correct the imbalance. A little bit of soreness during and after is fine, sharp pain, back off.

Probably too early, but also look at your grip position/grip shape and bar height and see if there is anything there which is likely to aggravate it when you get back on the bike. It could be a different shape of grip will help you hold your hand in a better position and reduce overgripping.

I did use a physio to massage out the various muscles around the elbow too. If weights are too much right now, you should be able to use a theraband to do the exercises with less loading.

I used a physio who massaged and used shockwave therapy cured 100% in about 4-5 weeks I think. My test is could I pick up a granite mortar with a wide grip previously just looking at it caused me pain! Now it is easy. I now use a blue Thera-Band to keep it from recurring starting with a yellow which was hard at the start.

Keep your fitness up by using a turbo trainer while the elbow heals up?

I developed tennis elbow last summer, I think I tracked it to my new bike having wider bars (went from 750mm to 800mm) and changing the position of my brake levers after reading some articles about positioning them flatter rather than angled.

Anyway, by the end of September it was so painful that I stopped riding and being able to do everyday things and went to a sports injury physio.

I don’t think there is a magic quick fix though.  My experience….

I had about a month of rest, icing and taking ibuprofen 4 times a day to bring the inflammation right down, this was at the same time as having massage from the physio and some very, very light exercises.

Resting will help, but after a while you need to do something about strengthening it because it won’t fix on its own.  The physio said it can take up to 2 years.

I had a real acceleration in improvement around Christmas by following the exercises program that was designed for my injury but also the massage by the physio really helped.  We discussed acupuncture and shockwave etc but because it improved quickly at that time, I didn’t need it.

I was discharged from treatment in February.  It’s not 100%, but its like 95%.  Daily life is fine, it aches every so often but is ok, resistance training and riding I still use a sleeve which then feels like both arms are equal again.

I also switched my grips on the bike to Ergon GA3’s with the little wing that you rest your a part of your palm on, this makes a massive difference to me personally.  I cut my bars down to 760mm and repositioned my brake levers at more of an angle, all of which helped.

So, that’s my experience!

Fellow sufferer here…I found mashing my forearms with a Lacrosse ball to be very helpful.

Also I find running narrower grips helpful to prevent flare ups.

Some good stuff to look at, thanks all!

I got this from the gym but what seems to have solved it (and all gym-related issues more recently) is only doing heavily loaded repetitive exercises to a 90 deg joint angle – beyond that the load of the muscle drops but the load on the joint shoots up.

So transferring that to riding, look at your arm/shoulder position when descending. I also agree that the right strengthening is more likely to help than stretching. Icing and anti-inflammatory drugs/gel can help.

You can get a simple brace that apparently helps. A Butcher I used to work for suffered from it and used a brace(A lot of Butchers play golf)

I got it from tennis (!!!) 2 years ago. I did daily door knob turning exercises and it disappeared in 2/3 weeks.

I left mine too late, ibuprofen, physio and steroid injections all failed
Day-case op, job done. No recurrence and no physio, which is just as well as I’m not the best at remembering/motivating 🙂

Don’t use a large diameter weight for exercise, e.g. tin of beans but use a small diameter, e.g. hammer or dumbbell

I used my jigsaw massage gun and exercises a lot last year when I had tennis and golf elbow issues, which helped keep things in check, but a Gua Sha scraping tool proved very useful to really clear them.

An epicondylitis clasp is your friend. It’s a cheap brace which fits around the affected area. It won’t cure you but it will ease pain and increase grip. A few years ago I couldn’t twist the throttle on my motorcycle due to TE. The clasp really helped.

Had it superbad a few years ago thought I’d have to retrain for work as months of physio had done nothing, gave up climbing could barely write. Paid to see a private physio who said I needed accupuncture. It was a miracle cure for me. 90% improvement after one session. I go for the odd session if I feel it coming on again.

Try the scraping method (also known as the graston technique) at home, you can use a butter knife rather than buy a tool, and maybe use some desicated coconut oil or other lube for more effect.

I’ve had acupuncture for my problems (and clasps, and different forms of exercise straps) but it/they did nothing, but this worked for me, and using a knife is cheap:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tennis+elbow+scraping

Our occupational health physio recommended getting an RPM Powerball, used that for a couple of minutes every night and it was loads better in a week or so, kept using it and it seems to have prevented it reoccurring.

I previously used an RPM powerball successfully as an exercise after some heavy percussive massage work, although this time the muscles seem much ‘ropier’ and the gastron blade seems good at clearing that up. Probably 25 years older than my previous episode of tennis elbow though.