With Wimbledon in full swing, you may be tempted to pick up your racquets and have a go yourselves. Tennis is great exercise and a healthy and enjoyable way to socialise, if you stay off the Pimms until afterwards.
There are many tennis clubs in the North West to cater for players of all abilities, including The Northern racquet sports club here in Didsbury, who have tennis and squash courts. There are also many local parks in Didsbury and Chorlton that have tennis courts open to the public.
If you do get the tennis bug, be careful you don’t over do things and build up the time you play gradually – just as you would increase your distance with running by increments. You may be using muscles you haven’t used in a long time. If you do start to feel pain around the outside of the elbow, you may have a condition called tennis elbow. It’s clinically known as lateral epicondylitis and often occurs after strenuous overuse of the muscles and tendons of the forearm, near the elbow joint. You may notice pain:
-when you twist your forearm, when opening a jar or turning a door handle
-on the outside (lateral side) of your upper forearm, just below the bend of your elbow
-when bending your arm
-when gripping small objects, such as a pen or cutlery, or indeed, your tennis racquet.
You can read in more detail about tennis elbow here.
If you do start playing tennis this summer, or are already a keen player, strengthening exercises and stretches are a good way of helping to avoid injury. To see some useful post tennis playing stretches, click here.
To strengthen your wrist extensor muscles, hold a small weight in your hand with the palm facing down. Extend the wrist upwards so that the back of your hand comes towards your body. Hold this position for two or three seconds and then lower slowly.
Massage is also a useful way of relieving the discomfort, applying light pressure over the area that is sore.
If you have any questions, please contact G4 Physiotherapy and Fitness Didsbury, Manchester by emailing admin@g4physio.co.uk or call 0161 4455133.