General Discussion Triathlon Talk » Medial Epicondylitis Rss Feed  
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2016-01-08 11:49 AM

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Subject: Medial Epicondylitis

Got a little too enthusiastic in my strength training (lat pulls) and ended up with a case of medial epicondylitis (aka swimmer's elbow/golfer's elbow) in the left elbow.  It has started to effect my swim, so went to the sports doc who is having me start PT.  The PT is likely not going to be a swimmer, so I'm looking for advice on what to do in the water during the recovery period.  The pull is what causes pain and subsequent inflammation and I've tried dialing back the intensity and just focusing on form, but after about 400-500 yards of this the elbow starts to complain.  Obviously kick drills and single right arm drills will be OK. IIdon't really know if there is much in the way of ther options, but thought I'd ask a group that collectively has a ton of experience?  Thoughts?



2016-01-08 6:03 PM
in reply to: TTom

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Subject: RE: Medial Epicondylitis
I had an elbow issue a few years back (traumatic injury rather than tendinitis, and I remember doing a lot of dolphin kick with fins, backstroke kick, one-armed free, and one-armed fly. You don't want to overdo the one-armed stuff as you could end up with a strength imbalance. I found that after a few weeks, breaststroke didn't bother me, although freestyle did. So I added some breaststroke sets to the mix. I kept the reps short (like 100m each) without much rest in between. After a few weeks of that, it got to the point where I could do the freestyle pull but not the extension on the catch, so I did sets of dog-paddle (using fins)! Probably didn't do a whole lot for conditioning but it does help you keep your feel for the water and if you're not aggravating the injury, the water and range of motion probably promotes healing. When things had gotten a bit better (maybe four weeks in), I was able to swim freestyle with fins and started working on endurance. A benefit of that injury was that it forced me to master breathing to the left--I usually breathe to the right, but at that time could only breathe comfortably to the left. Gradually weaned myself off the fins and back to breathing bilaterally, pulling, others strokes, and longer/harder sets.

My PT basically said I could do whatever didn't cause things to get more painful either in the water or after swimming, so I used that as a guide.
2016-01-12 7:55 PM
in reply to: Hot Runner

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Subject: RE: Medial Epicondylitis

Thanks for all the ideas.  My PT has OK'd me getting in the pool to find things that work and cause no pain, so will be experimenting.  Suspect I'll be doing a lot of fist drills :-)

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