Elbow pain often comes from repetitive movements and can come in many forms like tennis elbow, golfers elbow, or like my friend Nic, card thrower's elbow! Nick has a YouTube channel called NoWayAsWay, and he's a card thrower and does some pretty crazy card tricks. He often gets pain in his elbow and wrists.
Here are some stretches and exercises to help with elbow and wrist pain.
Starting with stretching, put your arm straight out in front of you. With your palm down, bend your wrist down with overpressure from your other hand. If this is not enough of a stretch, curl your fingers into a fist and do the same stretch. Now with your palm down and making a fist, bend your wrist up with overpressure from your other hand. If this is not enough of a stretch, open up your fingers pointing them in the air and do the same stretch. Hold these for 30 seconds, and do three of them each way. You can alternate back and forth with these.
Now grab a hammer or something that is top heavy to give you an extra stretch with overpressure. You will do your supination and pronation now with the hammer. Do ten of these.
Next you will use a resistive band for some strengthening exercises. You can prop your arm on a table and let your wrist hand off or you can hold it up in the air. Make a fist with your hand with your palm down holding onto the band that is anchored at your foot. At your wrist, bend your wrist up to work the muscles in extension, and then bend it down to stretch the muscles in flexion. Then you will turn your hand over with your palm up. Slowly pull the band upward only moving your wrist, and then come back down. Now hold the resistive band in your hands with your thumbs inwards facing each other, and put some tension on the band. Turn your wrist outward away from the other hand and slowly come back in. Start with ten of each of these.
Roll up a towel, use a foam roll, or ball and squeeze in your hands. Hold the squeeze for 3-5 seconds and do ten of these. Then take a rubber band and put it around all of your fingers. Open up your hand moving all of your fingers outwards, and slowly come back in. Start with 10 and then work your way up.
The last ones will be soft tissue mobilization of the painful area. You can use a massage cream or lotion, but you don’t have to. Start off by pushing very lightly and make small circles directly over the scar. Then you can go up and down and side to side. Once you have done that about a minute, you can start pushing harder.
Finally, you can do an ice massage to the area. You do not want to do an ice massage for more than 6-8 minutes so the ice doesn't irritate the skin. You will start off with a circular motion gently around the area. It will sting, burn, and then go numb. Once the area goes numb, you can push a little harder and massage the area. This can be done several times a day.
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