Four helpful tennis elbow exercises and stretches you can try right now

Tennis Elbow Treatment

Tennis elbow is a painful type of inflammation that affects the tendons along the outside of your elbow. The pain limits your range of motion and can radiate to other parts of your arm and affect your grip strength as well. 

While this inflammation may be commonly known as tennis elbow, it isn’t restricted to tennis players. You can develop tennis elbow from any activity that requires frequent repetitive motions involving the arm, such as lifting heavy objects, swimming or throwing a baseball. 

Four stretches and exercises to help treat tennis elbow

Stretches and exercises help improve strength and flexibility in your muscles, tendons and ligaments. This can help reduce the pain caused by tennis elbow and improve your range of motion while your tendon recovers from the inflammation.

Some of the exercises you can try right now are:

  1. Fist clenching — Fist clenching is an exercise that engages the muscles in your forearm. This helps restore your grip when it’s affected by tennis elbow. To do fist clenching exercises, hold a towel or a stress ball in your hand with the palm facing upward. Repeatedly squeeze and release the towel or ball to engage the muscles.
  2. Weighted supination — This exercise targets the supinator muscle in your forearm. This is a large muscle that runs from the forearm to your wrist. To do a weighted supination exercise, hold a light dumbbell or another weighted object in your hand while slowly rotating your wrist inward and outward. This should force the supinator muscle to engage.
  3. Wrist extensor stretch — Wrist extensors are muscles that power your downward wrist movement. These muscles can be affected by tennis elbow. To exercise these muscles, hold a light weight in your hand with your palm facing downward. Lift the hand up while holding the weight and slowly lower it back downward. Repeat 10 to 15 times a couple of times per day to engage the extensor muscles.
  4. Wrist flexor stretch — Wrist flexors are muscles in your forearm that cause the arm to bend inward at the elbow. Hold a light weight in your hand with your palm facing upward and slowly lift your hand toward your body and lower it back down. Repeat 10 to 15 times a couple of times per day. 

Visit SSOR for tennis elbow treatment 

Do you have pain stemming from the outer part of your elbow? You may be suffering from tennis elbow. If you find that these exercises aren’t enough, you may need physical therapy.

Our physical therapists at SSOR can examine your elbow and identify which exercises and other treatments will be most helpful. Contact our team today for more information about tennis elbow or to schedule an initial appointment.