Golfer's will often report sharp pain in their elbow at impact with ball. They may mention this to their doctor only to be told that they have tennis elbow if the pain is on the outside of their elbow or golfer's elbow if it is on the inside of the elbow. The tightness of your grip on the club has a lot to do with aggravating elbow pain. Another source of aggravation to consider is your golf swing itself. Specifically, the position of your wrist at impact with the golf ball.
Hang in there now as we think about why this may be so.
Club head speed at impact is the key to long drives. There are fundamental laws of physics having to do with production of torque that provide the maximum club head speed. Torque is simply the length of the lever arm multiplied by the amount of applied force.
Think of your arm from your shoulder to the club head as the lever arm. If you apply the same amount of force when swinging a club, you will achieve increasing amounts of torque when you use a longer club. This will increase your club head speed and that is why you choose longer clubs for longer drives.
This allows you to apply relatively consistent amounts of force with each swing with the only basic changes being the length of the club and the length of your back swing.
Now think about your arm from the shoulder down to the club head. If there is an interruption at any point along this line, the lever arm will shorten and the club head speed will also decrease.
Suppose then at impact with the ball, your elbow is bent. This means that instead of lever arm from your shoulder to your club head, you now have two lever arms from your shoulder to your elbow and from your elbow to the club head. So now you have to increase applied force at both the shoulder and the elbow in order to produce maximum club head speed.
Or, suppose that you manage to keep your elbow straight at impact and your wrist and elbow are straight six inches before impact, but at impact your wrist is slightly extended. Now you have two lever arms from your shoulder to your wrist and your wrist to the club head.
An even worse condition is if your elbow is bent and your wrist is extended at impact. Now there are three lever arms and there are still only two main areas of force application-the elbow and the shoulder. This is because the muscles that extend the wrist and extend the elbow have attachments at the elbow.
So, you can see that this is a perfect storm for golfers to develop 'tennis elbow'
Here are some effective, non-magical ways of treatment of tendinitis:
These are suggestions and always need to be done under the care of your physician.
Rest is key;
Make postural changes whenever possible;
Make sure that your golf grips are not smooth and can be held securely without a lot of grip force.
Apply ice directly to the inflamed tissues for 5 minutes 4-5 times a day;
Stretch the muscles slowly and only to the point of stretch - avoiding bouncing and pain;
Learn how to apply cross friction massage to the inflamed tissue for 3.5 to 4.0 minutes twice a day;
Gradually introduce gentle squeezing of a ball when it can be done without pain.
Natural antioxidant juices such as Xango can also be very helpful in helping to reduce inflammation;
Anti inflammatory medicines may be prescribed by your physician.
Have a great game!
Steve McMurray MPT
