UKC

I know with pully injury's a good part of rehab is gentle climbing on open handed holds.

Does this hold for rehabing elbows? If im still having pain should I lay off the climbing and heal?

I'm trying for the first time in my life to correctly manage an injury. Usually I heal to 70%, feel okay, go out and re-injure then repeat ad nausum and by trying to climb sooner, in the big picture actually spend longer not climbing.

In reply to Kemics:

http://onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/2012/03/injuries-problem-with-lay-o...

Dave Mac has a number of things to say on the subject of managing chronic elbow injuries, if you look back on his blog. I think you should be looking at eccentric wrist curls/reverse wrist curls if you are not already.

In reply to Kemics:

Hi Kemics, I used to suffer really badly with elbow tendinitis and I have found that gentle push ups really helped! (as with gentle climbing for puuly injury's)

and if I did them before and after climbing it meant that I could still climb!!

Hope this helps

Yogi

In reply to Kemics:

I have no medical training whatsoever, so take this with as big a pinch of salt as that suggests, but the first time I got elbow tendinosis (inside of my right elbow) a couple of years ago, I did a lot of reading up on the internet and the consensus seemed to be that you shouldn't stop climbing while recovering it.

I started a program of eccentric weights exercises for rehab (I think there was a good article on here about that), took more care over warming up and continued climbing hard routes at the gym (no bouldering though). I did the exercises religiously, and when I was pain free, I continued them for another four weeks. I haven't had any problems with that attachment point since.

Second bout (outside of right elbow) was the back end of last year - I started the exercises but didn't really pay as much attention to doing them daily and stopped once I was pain free. Few months down the line, that elbow is now giving me a bit of pain again.

So my rather unscientific study of two incidents in one single test subject suggests you can climb through and fully re-hab the problem as long as you're strict with the exercise regime.

Good luck with the recovery!

In reply to Kemics:

Ah dude you're falling apart! I had it creeping on this week and still climbed, just did some press-ups in the evening each day, to get the tendon working in the other direction, and now it's all sorted. I had it really bad before (hurt pulling my trousers up) had to drop my grade out of necessity and no dynamic or powerful moves, but still climbed and did press-ups and it sorted itself.

There's these excercises too which people swear by- http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=3614

In reply to Kemics:
Found the Dave Mac article after going through a lot of his blog (which was interesting and wasted a while on a quiet day).
It can be found here: http://www.onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/2011/02/golferstennis-elbow-etc...

In reply to Dave 88: Mine was pretty bad for about 6 months until i watched that video (http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=3614) made my 'elbow stick' and started doing pushups. 2 months of 2x20 eccentric wrist curls in both directions on both elbows (gradually increasing the distance and weight) and doing 20 push ups each morning and eavening and i was good. They werent totally fixed but as long as i did push ups and elbow stick after each climbing session they would be fine the next morning. I occaisionally get a twinge so start the exercises again for a week or so, if im at the crag a few push ups normally get rid of the twinge.

Another unexpected help for me was going on a 2 month sport climbing trip and getting stupid pumped by top roping something way too hard for me at the end of the day. The warm dull feeling of crazy pump made my elbows feel amazing.
I find that if i pull hard without warming up or only climb for a short period my elbows do hurt but as long as I climb for long enough and warm up slowly or with pushups its all good.

In reply to Kemics:

I think it depends on how bad it is and the sort of person you are.

In my younger and dafter years I had climbers elbow(pain in the bit behind your funny bone) for about a 6-9 months. I saw various doctors to try to get shot of it. Eventually one elbow "specialist" told me to just ignore all other advice and to carry on doing what I enjoy as I wouldn't make it worse. May not have been the most scientific advice but it worked.

A few years later I discovered that press ups on a flat hand are actually a good way of stretching out your forearm muscles. I'd started doing press ups to build up strength again after seeing the specialist, so perhaps by complete fluke cured myself!

I did find that pinching irritated it at first but once i got stronger again it became less so.

How often do you climb, could you reduce the duration/increase rest time between sessions and gently increase over a few months?

In reply to Kemics:

I've noticed the press ups have already started helping.

Coincidentally (or not) I've avoid narrow press ups before because my elbow would click and it's stopped doing it since I injured the tendon.

Either way, will be back out climbing this weekend ... huzzah

...and yes i am falling apart, dont think im designed for climbing.

In reply to Kemics:

today went and did a bit of traversing, left elbow felt great with the tendonosis....suddenly the right elbow starts really hurting. stupid feeble body! Tendinitis?

on the plus side now I have a full set.

In reply to Olli-C:

Typical push-ups may not work well for strengthening the structures on back of the forearm.
There are some better alternatives like pullaps on back of hands (opisthenar):

youtube.com/watch?v=hyKVG9YCddM&

Similarly, push-ups on back of hands (opisthenar) not palms have similar effect, but they may be too intensive for wrists.