The 7 Biggest Tennis Elbow Myths

Ajouté : 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hey guys, I have Dr. Adrian here who is a doctor in physical therapy. He specializes in helping players get rid of tennis elbow. Welcome to the channel, Dr. Adrien. Today, we're going to discuss the most common tennis elbow myths. And I'm going to start this out with a myth that you might not think is a myth because I've said in many videos that changing a racket might help you get rid of tennis elbow, but it is a myth because changing your tennis equipment will not always get rid of your tennis elbow. So, I'm sure you heard the story where I got tennis elbow when I switched to the Wilson end code.

[00:00:42]I play with the hyper hammer and then I went back to the Wilson hyper hammer and I called it the tennis arm healing racket. But then the second time I experienced tennis elbow, it didn't really work out that way. I got tennis elbow during my finding a new tennis racket series and I continued to test different rackets and I went back to my old bevel pure drive plus and the tennis elbow didn't immediately go away. It took a little while for the arm pain to subside. So, it is not always the case that switching equipment will take your tennis elbow pain away. And Dr. Adrian has a scientific explanation.

[00:01:20]>> So, at the end of the day, tennis elbow is caused by too much forces and strain on the tendons on the outside here. And the racket is a big part of this, but it's not the end all be all. So, at the end of the day, it's just physics. And the racket can help adjust the shock and the forces going through the arm. And what happens when you change a racket and you develop tennis elbow or a little bit of pain discomfort is now you're using or playing a racket you're not used to. So maybe you don't hit right on the center. Maybe it's not responding the way that you're used to and anticipating with the racket that you played for years and you're you're used to using that racket and that throws things off to the point where some people can develop tennis elbow. Now, if you switch back to the racket that you used to use, everything goes back to normal because it's what you're familiar with. Where a lot of players get stuck is they try a racket, they develop tennis elbow and they try to look for the magical racket that will fix their tennis elbow and they focus on this racket, that racket, and they get stuck in this limbo where no racket feels good. We're playing with any racket hurts. And if tennis elbow gets bad enough, it doesn't matter what racket you're playing with, you're going to get pain because at the end of the day, you have to hit that ball back to the other side of the court and that's going to put pressure on that elbow. So, what you should focus on is if you have a racket that you love playing with, focus on the rehab, the exercises to fix that elbow, and that way you can play with any racket that you want because at the end of the day, if your elbow's healthy, you can use any racket.

[00:02:54]>> Dr. Adrian, I'm so glad you say this because it is true that when you can pinpoint where the pain started, it makes so much sense to go back to your previous string setup, your previous tension, your previous racket. A lot of times the pain can go away.

[00:03:10]>> But a lot of players find themselves in this racket testing hamster wheel and the string testing hamster wheel. What happens with players when they fall into this trap of continuously playing with different rackets is that they lose their racket preferences and now they're in this big nightmare because they don't know what their preferences are anymore and they're completely lost and playing with so many different rackets can certainly cause a lot of problems regarding the elbow. So, it is very wise to find a racket that you're comfortable with and just stick with it. And then like Dr. Adrian said, "Make sure that you're doing the exercises because you are looking for something doesn't exist, which is the perfect racket." That's a very common trap that players fall into.

[00:03:53]The next myth is that tennis elbow is just inflammation. And yes, inflammation can be involved, but it's just a symptom. It's not the root cause. And here's what I mean. What happens actually is tennis elbow is an injury to the tendon on the outside of the elbow here. And it's very much like a rope.

[00:04:10]You can imagine as we pull and tug on that rope as we play and overuse it over time it starts to fray and degenerate and it's that fraying and degeneration that leads to the injury and the inflammation is just a symptom of that.

[00:04:26]It's not the root cause. So a lot of players focus on icing resting all these things to reduce the inflammation pain pills but they get stuck in this pain cycle of it gets a little bit better they play and it comes back. And the reason for that is you're just focusing on reducing the inflammation, the stress on the elbow, but you're not focusing on rebuilding that elbow, getting it stronger, getting it more resilient. And that's really the secret. It's fixing the degeneration, the fraying, the weakness in that tendon, and not the inflammation. We in fact want a little bit of inflammation to promote the healing process.

[00:05:01]>> Dr. Adrian, I see so many videos on the internet where supposedly stretching is the solution for tennis elbow, but what do you think about that? In my opinion, stretching is not good for tennis elbows. Now, I'm not going to say it's going to make it completely worse or cause a tear, anything bad like that.

[00:05:15]And an analogy I like to use here is imagine you have a scab and you just keep on picking it. That's essentially what we're doing with stretching is we have an injury in that tendon. Let's say it's fraying, it's weak, it's painful, and what do we do? We pull on it and stretch it. So, it's already weak. And that pulling, that stretching potentially can continue to pull on it and just aggravate that scab a little bit. And the reason so many players do it is it feels great in the moment. So when you're stretching, it actually sends signal to your brain. True and it decreases the pain in the moment. But what I hear a lot from players is all they do is stretch all day, multiple times throughout the day just to relieve that pain, but it just keeps on coming back. So if you all you focus on is stretching, you won't get it fixed.

[00:05:57]>> Dr. Adrian, how about the other thing that I see so much, which is icing the elbow. Does that do anything? So actually icing is a bad idea with tennis elbow and the reason for this is that tendon it doesn't get a lot of blood flow and what ice does is it constricts how much blood flow goes to that tendon and we don't have studies on tendons specifically but for muscles they did studies where people went and worked out. They did a ice bath after and they found that they lost all the benefits of that exercise session. It wiped it all away and they attribute this to wiping down the inflammatory response. So, we need a little bit of inflammation to promote the healing and we need the blood flow. So, better option for tennis elbows actually heat. Heat will promote the blood flow to the area. It'll maybe potentially speed up that healing process a little bit. And again, we don't have studies about ice and tendons specifically, but based on that study with muscles, potentially it could slow down the healing process. So throw out the ice pack and start using a heat pack.

[00:07:00]>> So Dr. Adrian, can I ask you no icing? I understood that. But when it comes to before a match and after a match, would you recommend heat before a match and after the match or one or the other?

[00:07:14]>> Yeah. So you can use heat really at any time. It's great to do before rehab to open up the blood vessels, get more blood flow. It's great to do before playing so that tendon feels warmer and ready for the forces. Another caveat here is if you have an important tournament and you're having a little bit of pain, you can potentially use ice to help you recover faster in between those matches. But make sure you stay safe and smart and you don't overplay when the elbow can't handle it. And rely on ice to recover in between the matches. It would only be used if the pain is under control and you want it to recover a little bit faster in between tournaments. You're doing the rehab.

[00:07:52]You're doing all the right things.

[00:07:53]>> Dr. Adrian, what about just resting the elbow, taking a month off, will that get rid of it?

[00:08:00]>> So, what I hear over and over again is just take time off and it'll go away.

[00:08:06]And for some that could be true, but for a lot of the players that I talk to, they take one, two, three, sometimes even up to six months off. And the most frustrating part is they return and the same pain comes back. So what's going on there is resting helps to decrease the pain in the short term. But how the elbow heals is through loading. It's through strengthening, conditioning that elbow. And when we're resting, yes, we're decreasing the pain. We're decre decreasing the inflammation in the moment, but we're not doing anything to repair it to get it strong enough and get back to playing painfree. So that's why resting is a good tool in the moment to decrease the pain, but it won't get it fixed long term.

[00:08:48]>> Dr. Adrian, how about cortisone shots to fix tennis elbow?

[00:08:52]>> Cortisone is the worst thing you can do for your tennis elbow. By far, it's absolutely the worst thing you can do.

[00:08:59]And unfortunately, the first thing that doctors recommend is a cortisone shot.

[00:09:04]And some doctors know about this and the long-term effects of cortisone. Others just give it to you and don't really tell you much about it. But the reason it's still around, even though we have research all the way up to 20 years old at this point, the reason it's still given is it gives you immediate relief.

[00:09:22]It's the only thing the doctor can do there to fix it, patch it up, send you out the door happy, and you think the problem is gone, but underneath the tennis elbow is still going on. And we actually made it worse long term. So, let me explain a little bit about the science of how that works. So a cortisone shot is a corticosteroid injection where you inject a substance into your elbow and that decreases inflammation to zero which is great for pain. Now your pain is gone but we actually need a little bit of inflammation to promote the healing process. So essentially what you've done is stop the healing process completely.

[00:09:59]Not only that, any exercise that you do after a cortisone shot is less effective at healing that elbow. And the worst part is most people think they're magically cured by that shot. And what do they do? They go back to playing more because they've been dealing with the elbow. It's been frustrating. It's been holding them back. They get that shot.

[00:10:17]They feel that relief. The first thing they think about is going back to playing. And what they don't know is that elbow, it's still injured. There's still something going on. And you're just numb to it. And you don't feel the consequences of it. And often times what we see is the first quarter zone shot works great. The second cortisone shot works great. Third cortisone shot, slowly the effects go down because the elbow is just getting worse and worse.

[00:10:43]And not only does the research show that cortisone shots doesn't help with tennis elbow, it actually makes it worse compared to placebo. With the cortisone study, what they did is they had one group of people and another. For one group of people, they gave them a regular cortisone shot. For another group of people, they thought they got the cortisone shot, but they actually got water injections. The group that got the cortisone shot one year later was in more pain, more dysfunction compared to the group that just got the water. So, not only does it not fix your tennis elbow, you're sacrificing short-term relief for long-term pain, another thing it does is it makes it more likely to develop a tear or potentially a full rupture of that tendon when you've had multiple cortisone shots. That's why some doctors after three or four shots will say no more.

[00:11:35]>> Dr. Adrian, one thing that can be frustrating on the internet is when players start sharing their experiences with tennis elbow and various comment sections. Other people read this and they think that what one person is experiencing is exactly the same that they should be experiencing. And common sense tells me that everyone is a little bit different. What do you think about people that believe that all tennis elbow is the same?

[00:12:00]>> Absolutely. So all tennis elbow is not the same and it varies in multiple different ways. So it could vary in severity of how bad it is. It can vary in people's experiences and also the structures that are actually going on.

[00:12:14]So for severity for some people tennis elbow can last for years before they can get it fixed. For others it could just last a couple weeks and if they tried icing resting anecdotally they'll say, "Oh, that fixed my tennis elbow." when in actuality it wasn't really a big issue at that point. So that's one big variation there. Another important factor is just how complex the outside of the elbow is. So there's actually five different muscles and tendons on the outside of the elbow. Any one of them could be affected. And there's also a nerve going through that side. So that's why we see such different varieties of tennis elbow in terms of where it hurts, how it presents, what people experience. And that's why it's so important and that's why we developed a root cause assessment using the racket to isolate all the different parts of the elbow, test them individually so that we're not guessing, we're just focusing on exactly where they have pain. That's what we found has been a extremely important factor in terms of helping people finally fix it longterm, especially when it's been going on for a while.

[00:13:15]>> That makes a lot of sense, Dr. Adrian.

[00:13:16]And another thing that I see so frequently regarding tennis elbow is that somebody has a tennis elbow experience and they believe that this should apply to everyone. For example, most commonly the Babel Pure Drive gave me tennis elbow. That is an experience that applies to that person, but it shouldn't be generalized to an entire tennis population because there are many players of many different levels that play with the pure drive without any pain whatsoever. Also, a lot of times other factors are important such as the tension of the strings, the strings itself, what the person used previously prior to playing through the pure drive.

[00:13:51]So, there are so many different factors that it's impossible to make every single tennis elbow case the same.

[00:13:59]>> Too many variations and too many different factors that can contribute to it. So, it's important that everyone understands their own individual issues regarding tennis elbow and applies their own individual. solutions.

[00:14:13]>> Absolutely. And this is why tennis elbow is such a confusing topic. And here I try to boil it down to the fundamentals and give actionable advice for everybody because there's just so much information. You hear one thing from your tennis coach, you hear another thing from your friend, you hear another thing from your doctor, and you just don't know what to do next. You're confused by all this different information. And a lot of times they're contradicting each other.

[00:14:37]>> So contradicting. So some one person can heal their tennis elbow with a very stiff racket that's supposed to give you tennis elbow while another person can get tennis elbow from a very stiff racket. On the other hand, somebody can take the racket that's marketed as the most arm friendly racket out there that's very soft >> and get tennis elbow from that while somebody else can get relief from a racket like that. So you'll see stories from across the board of confusing and contradicting experiences that players have. But Dr. Adrian, I want to finish off with something that's very important that it is a myth that I see all the time regarding tennis elbow. And that is that it can only come from an improper backhand. And that certainly is not true because you can get tennis elbow from a wide variety of factors as I said and more specifically to technique. A lot of players have a two-handed back end even at the recreational level. So, it's unlikely that you're gonna get tennis elbow from a two-handed back end, but you still could. You still have the arm on the outside. And you can also get tennis elbow on other strokes as we discussed in our tennis elbow and tennis technique video. You can get a bad case of tennis elbow if your elbow is in the wrong position on the forehand. You can even get tennis elbow on the serve if you're doing certain things wrong. So it is an absolute myth that it's only the backhand that can give you tennis elbow.

[00:16:02]It is pretty much any stroke in the game of tennis >> can also happen outside of tennis too.

[00:16:07]We see that often where somebody at the gym has a has an injury lifting weights maybe in their occupation.

[00:16:15]>> I've heard people cleaning their house they get tennis elbow >> from that too.

[00:16:19]>> Really can happen for millions of different reasons but tennis is definitely a big one.

[00:16:24]>> Dr. Adrian, I think we knocked all these tennis elbow myths out of the park. What do you think?

[00:16:28]>> That's great. No other >> Awesome. Thank you so much.

[00:16:30]>> Mythbusters.

[00:16:32]>> Yes.