UKC

Hi Everyone,

I have been suffering from tennis elbow for a year. Later on, I developed golfers elbow too in both arms. I have tried many well-known remedies: eccentric exercises, powerball, grip saver ball, resting, gentle exercise, stretching, physiotherapy, etc... 
As you might have guessed, nothing worked really. I have been going through waves and haven't really climbed since the start of the injury. Sometimes my elbows feel better, other times they feel worse. I just can't see the way out of this. 
I have come across this device called Armaid. The reviews are really good of this massager, but many other products that I have tried had good reviews and they didn't work for me.

Is there anyone amongst us who has been in a similar situation to me and this product made a big difference in his or her recovery?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073QX8R7D/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_K0R4M50D9B273...

Many thanks for your input.

Hmmm... I thought it was "how much better is the Aramid", couldn't get the thing about elbows had to read title 3 times. Maybe I should've gone to specsavers?

Best of luck with the elbow healing. Wondering if you have a correct and detailed diagnosis as all the treatments and physio may not help if they are the wrong treatments and wrong physio for your condition. Maybe return to the start to seek confirmation of your diagnosis?

I have had an MRI a month ago which confirmed the diagnosis.

An armaid is a fine device but still not as good as a proper rehab protocol. My experience suggests starting with as high an intensity as you can manage whilst it still being very light if necessary, keeping reps quite low and keeping a journal of the pain. You want to avoid flare ups the next morning, but the same day would be fine. Give the method a lot of time to work. And most importantly do all this under the guidance of a decent physio.

https://tomrandallclimbing.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/golfers-elbow-a-possibl...

This about nails it. Recovery from tendinopathies can be protracted and difficult. But exercise therapy is central to most rehab plans. 

Complicating the issue is that causes of pain associated with tendinopathy are complex, and there is little consensus on specific methodologies. What works for one might not work so well for another - if at all. Other difficulties include the therapist's ability to communicate the plan, and the client's ability to absorb it and stick to it. 

OP manual therapy (such as massage and including the Armaid) has been shown to be useful in reducing pain - this is theorised to help patients load the affected structures more - in a sensible, graded fashion. But it'll likely not solve the problem on its own. 

If you have no joy it might be worth seeking out a physio with proven experience in rehab of sporting professionals - climbers, tennis players, other 'overhead athletes'.

Hi,

I can recommend Andy McVittie as a physio / coach.

His articles are very interesting https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/injuries/elbow_tendinopathy_-_the_boome...

Hope this helps

Cheers Paul 

I can't really see how the armaid will help. I suppose reducing tightness in the muscle may be useful, but it's not going to stop your tendons being in a degenerative state.

Both Lattice and Sheffield Climbing Clinic have good up to date advice for this stuff. Based on what I've read, tendons don't like rest. Sure, cut out whatever caused the problem in the first place (big lock offs, campus boarding, campusing or whatever), but keep climbing, perhaps at a reduced volume/intensity. If you don't then the healthy bit of your tendons will get weaker, and so proportionally you'll have a more damaged tendon. From everything I've read you need to strengthen the healthy tendon at the same time as persuading the damaged bit of tendon out of the degenerative state with regular and progressively increasing eccentric or isometric wrist curls/hammer exercise/tyler twists

Tendonosis is difficult to fix intuitively. It takes a long time to fix, and progress is slow. You won't know if something you're doing is helping the next day, it takes weeks. Pain the day after a session is fine, as long as on average that pain is decreasing

hi, I’ve got an ArmAid. It definitely has helped my tennis elbow (outer) pain. But not sure it will work for everyone. I’m not a medic. 

I got mine from TCA. Amazon we’re too expensive. 
I bought the hard core orange ball at the same time. 

It’s a handy device. Light enough to take to the crag or wall.  A few people had a go with it in AW Sheffield last week.

UKC did a review a while ago. Sure you’ll find it.

took it to show my physio. He was impressed saying it’s doing exactly the right thing. Pressure point massage. He was also a bit gutted that he’d not thought of it himself.  That’s life. 

PS If you go to AW Sheff let me know. I’ll let you try it out 

I have had great relief from tennis elbow with the use of Armaid. It might not work for all but it certainly did for me and in a very short timescale too. I still use it now when forearms feel tight after a session. Bought mine from TCA as an all-in package with all of the rollers but I actually only regularly use 2 of them: the soft black one to  loosen up followed by the big orange one for specific pressure point treatment. It might seem expensive but the full set from TCA probably costs less than three private physio sessions? Well worth a go I'd say. 

I've had a combo of recurrent golfer's and tennis elbow for a decade - since an accident when I smashed my elbow, with lots of overuse since.  I've never entirely rid myself of my combination of continual elbow tendonosis / tendonitis- I can't master the balance between rehab activity and exacerbation. 

But in recent years, whenever I have started to feel twinges, a few Armaid sessions have stopped the problem developing further and allowed me to keep climbing (pre-Armaid it would generally get worse, until I got so sore I had to stop climbing).  That said, YMMV - it might not work for your case and, even if it would, cheaper, more manual massaging might achieve the same.

[personally after spending hundreds of pounds and lots of time on physio session that provided only temporary relief, I was prepared to spend far less for the faint prospect of a measure of control... though, that is admittedly the kind of thinking can lead people to trust crystals and copper bracelets rather than going to doctors...]

Just make sure what your diagnosis of tennis and golfer's elbow is actually correct.  I hade years of doing pointless eccentric exercises and massage before a physio correctly diagnosed the problem as being caused by a nerve (fixed by a postural change). good luck

My experience is very similar to Moose's. Recurring golfers elbow with occasional tennis elbow thrown in for good measure over the last 15 years or so. A lot of the usual re-hab exercises play havoc with my wrists, especially reverse wrist curls so I took a punt on the Armaid and haven't looked back. 

From personal experience it's important to keep climbing as rest doesn't seem to help at all.

Thank you for the link. I did this stretching in the past but it did not work for me. My tendons got even more irritated by the stretching. 

In reply to goodboy:

Thank you. I like the strategic approach. I think I will implement this in my rehab. 

I feel a bit moved by all the helpful comments, didn’t expect them. It is good to read that there is a way out. Thank you for everyone!

There was a point when I stopped doing everything for 2 months apart from some cardio to let my inflammation to settle down. I have been going to the gym (not climbing gym) since beginning of January to build up my strength gently. I am getting stronger slowly but I am still riding the wave of pain from time to time. Besides the general body strengthening, I am doing the well know physio exercises once or twice a week. I am afraid to do them more often as I don’t want to have a big flare-up again.

I have ordered the Armaid and hoping that it will successfully complement my current training regime.

I am not sure I should start climbing yet or just carry on with my strengthening exercises.

Maybe, I could use one of these pinch blocks before I go out to climb again?
https://latticetraining.com/product/portable-pinch-crimp-block/

Any thoughts on this?

Going out a climbing a bunch of severes at Stanage will probably be less strain on your elbow and better fun than a pinch block. 
 

Ask your physio but my physio exercises have always to be done daily or on most days. Maybe you need to lower the intensity a bit? Keep your ego out of it, if a tin of beans is your limit right now, that’s your limit. Maybe your other exercises are somehow also straining the tendons so that they are already tired.

As ever, trust a medical professional over some stranger on the Internet.

As you say you've tried eccentric exercises, you may have already seen this, as it's been repeated or published in various forms on the web for years, but it is the one thing that helped me. I had bad tennis&golfers elbows a few years back and this - for me - was almost miraculous.

http://drjuliansaunders.com/dodgy-elbows/

I feel like I should reiterate what Dr. Julian says about getting the technique exactly right, but to be honest, I doubt I got it exactly right (I was desperate to try anything at the time, so was rushing) and it STILL worked. I notice the relief almost immediately, but even I had to stick at it for a week or two to get a lasting 'cure'.

I've only played with an Armaid in the shop. It felt good, but not strong enough of a massage, and my forearms are not overly big or muscular by climbing standards. I'd tried other forms of localised massage before doing Saunders' eccentric curls, and while it felt good and seemed to help very briefly, basically it didn't work, at all.

I just would like to give everyone an update about the Armaid. I have been using it for a month nearly every single day. Initially, I used the white balls but I have worked my way up to the orange massage ball (orange for the flexor side, white/lemon for the extensor side of the forearm). I have managed to get similar effect to the massages I used to got from my physiotherapist. I consider that a win because this device costs the fraction of going to a physiotherapist regularly and it is accessible to me most of the day.

Overall, I have managed to achieve some relief in my forearms but as others have pointed out before, it is not enough on its own. You need to take other measures to recover from this condition. However, I must say that this is one of the best devices I have used so far. Thus, I highly recommended it. Also, it can be used on your calves too 😊

( I have ordered mine from the US. It was around £130 pounds with postage and all the accessories, didn't need to pay for import tax.)

Have you considered a massage gun as an alternative? More versatile. I (very anecdotally) feel that it wards off elbow issues. 

I tried everything over a number of years.

Had the operation in the end.   Fantastic results.

Sell your granny, go private, find something else to do for a few months rehab, don't rush it.

( mine was NHS but due to Covid you'd be looking at a massive wait now....)

Good luck .

I have one, and used it for a while. I don't think it did any more than I could also do by leaning a lot of weight on a small foam roller on a table, but it was certainly more convenient to use. But later I bought a massage gun, and, similar to Robert's experience, now hardly use the armaid any more.

I suspect massage in whatever form is only temporary relief though. The two things that really cured my golfer's were firstly the standard recommendation of eccentric curls - although bicep curls seemed to help me more than wrist curls. And secondly paying more attention to not unnecessarily using deep lockoffs when climbing - I actually caught myself doing this more out of carelessness/laziness on jugs on easy warmups than on harder routes.

I found applying pressure using a golf ball on a chair helped massively to cure my tennis and golfer’s elbow (certainly cheaper than an Armaid). Along with consistent eccentric exercises (lowering a dumbbell left and right with a weight only on one side).