Elbow pain is something we treat a lot at Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine. Often the pain comes on gradually and is located on the outside of your elbow. It often makes things like lifting a cup of coffee, cooking dinner, or exercising difficult and painful.
If your elbow pain is like this, you need a plan to help. Here are 2 easy exercises you can do to stop elbow pain and live an active life again.
Wrist Extensor Stretch
When your elbow starts hurting it can cause the muscles on the top of your forearm to tighten up, which makes it hurt even more. Stretching these muscles can help to relieve some of the pain and tension
Hold the stretch for 30 seconds. Make sure to keep your elbow straight. Do this 2 to 3 times a day to help provide short term relief of your pain.
Wrist Extensor Strengthening
While stretching tight muscles can help to decrease your pain short term, strengthening those muscles is the most important part of getting rid of elbow pain for good.
Initially do this exercise with your elbow bent to 90 degrees. Start with 3 sets of 10 reps. Go slow on the way down. Use 1 to 2 pounds to start.
To get the best results find a weight that either gets the muscles really fatigued or reproduces some mild pain. Every other day is a good frequency to do these.
It sounds strange, but you do need to reproduce a low level of pain/soreness with the exercise to get the best result.
Once you can do more than 5 pounds, you can progress to doing this with your elbow straight. When you do this, drop the weight back down to 1 to 2 pounds again.
None of the exercises above should make you hurt more.
If you’ve tried these and you’re still hurting, we can help you!
At Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine, our physical therapists are experts at treating elbow pain and will develop a plan to help you stop it.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to request and appointment.
A member of our team will schedule you an appointment with one of our expert physical therapists.
What happens if you don’t have a plan to stop elbow pain?
- Your need help for basic tasks because your elbow hurts
- You avoid playing with your kids because you’re afraid of hurting your elbow
- You get out of shape and are more likely to get other diseases and injuries
But WITH a plan for to stop elbow pain you can live the life you want again.
The exercises above are a great way to get started. They don’t require a ton of time and are pretty easy to do correctly.
But if you want an expert to listen to your unique problems and guide you to success, a Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine physical therapist will create a plan specifically for you.
You’ll feel confident that you have the knowledge and ability to stop elbow pain and do all the things you want.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to schedule your appointment and start your path to healing.
Working to keep you living your best life,
The Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine Team
