Thursday, September 14, 2017

September 12, 2017 - Injuries and Martial Arts

I haven't posted in awhile. I've been busy with life and had some injuries along the way. I thought of chronicling my experience or what I've gone through with injuries. I'm sure some of us go through some pain and aches. Sometimes accidents happen or injuries occur because of the amounts of reps we do to attain perfection or success.

Lately, I've been working through an injury called lateral epicondylitis, or in laymen terms tennis elbow. I did some research on how to work through it. I had some of my students recommend an equipment to work through my pain. I did wait about four days after my initial pain to start working on my injury. I know I wanted to work on it instead of waiting for the pain to stop. Here's what I've found.

So, I looked up some information on the injury and found some cool articles. One article I found was on a website called, Art of Manliness. This first article called, "Bicep tendonitis - A multi-step approch". I really liked the information that was presented there. I know my tennis elbow was probably a tendon issue and not so much muscle, but I still used the concept in this article to my rehab. I needed more information so I looked up more stuff to see on that website. I found another article with Mark Rippetoe. Actually, it's a video of him explaining what he did when he had "golfers elbow" which effects the bottom of the forearm. It was very similar to the other article above so it seemed like a good idea try it. Here's a small video of him explaining what he did to fix his issue.




One equipment was recommended from one of my students. It's called the Flexbar and you can get it on Amazon. I've been working with it for awhile now and it seems to be helping. I've been doing 3 sets of 10 with this twice a day. It seems to be working and helping me get stronger.

It's been about four weeks now since the initial onset of pain. It looks like it's getting better. Other things that I've done are alternating hot and cold compress, massage, ice after workout, and rest. Before, my first week at rehab I could only lift up a 3 lbs dumbell doing 3 sets of 20. Now, I can lift up to 10 lbs with some pain. Still getting stronger.

These are just my notes and experience on this injury. Please consult your primary doctor for diagnosing and treatment.

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