Formerly known as Worcestershire Physiotherapy and Sports Injury Clinics, The Physiotherapy Partners have branches in Kidderminster, Birmingham and Halesowen and have a great deal of experience in treating a range of sporting injuries.

Tennis elbow is clinically known as lateral epicondylitis, and is an injury causing pain around the outside of the elbow. The cause of this pain is overuse of the muscles and tendons in the forearm creating an inflammation; therefore, you don’t have to be a tennis player or even play tennis to be affected.

This injury will commonly affect your dominant arm, but can also occur in your nondominant or both arms. Symptoms include pain on the outside of your elbow, when lifting or bending your arm, and pain that gets worse when you are shaking hands with someone or squeezing an object. You may also suffer from pain when moving your elbow with a force such as when opening a jar. It may also be difficult to fully extend your arm. If these symptoms last more than six weeks your injury is considered sub-acute, and if longer than three months as chronic tennis elbow. You should contact professional help in any circumstance.

Tennis elbow is usually caused by damaged muscle tissue and overusing the muscles attached to your elbow. Other causes may include unaccustomed hand use, such as lots of typing, excessive gripping activities, poor technique (which typically would be related to tennis), or poor forearm muscle strength.

The injury can be diagnosed by a dedicated physiotherapist here at The Physiotherapy Partners. The physiotherapist will require you to give a description of your pain before doing a physical examination of the area. When the correct diagnosis is made your physiotherapist will develop a tailored treatment plan to suit your tennis elbow.

Physiotherapy can effectively help you recover from tennis elbow. The stages you are likely to take to recover from such injury are reducing your elbow pain, facilitating your tissue repair, restoring the normal range of motion and strength to your elbow with a number of strengthening muscles, before moving on to normalising your joint function. Throughout your recovery, you will get hands-on treatment and your physiotherapist will advise you on the best course of action to take based on your condition and your lifestyle. If other treatment options may be suitable for you and your physiotherapist will talk you through the options and give your their expert advice.

Please remember every injury differs depending on the individual and your recovery length will also vary. If you would like to contact The Physiotherapy Partners please find our contact information here. Information on other services we offer is also available here.

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