What is "golfer's elbow"?
Golfer's elbow, which is also known as medial epicondylitis, is a type of tendonitis that's located at the elbow in the forearm. The flexor muscles, the muscles that bend your fingers and your wrist, attach to the elbow bone through a tendon. When there's undue stress on those muscles from some type of a repetitive movement, that's golfer's elbow, and the reason we call it "golfer's elbow" is because golfers, the way they hold the golf club, are contracting those muscles over and over and over again with large forces as they swing and they hit the ball. There are large forces that are transmitted through that muscle group into that tendon, and over time they may develop little microscopic tears in that tendon, and then it swells and it becomes very painful. The treatment for golfer's elbow would be to minimize the stresses through that muscle that are being transmitted on to the tendon, decrease the inflammatory process, give that tendon an opportunity to heal, and then eventually take a look at the technique with which they are doing that particular activity. If it's a golfer, you want to take a look at their swing and see what is abnormal about their specific technique to see if you can change the technique and take the abnormal pressures off of those muscles, and therefore minimise the chance of them redeveloping that particular type of tendonitis.
