PT Ginger Morrissey On Tennis Elbow

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Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman. Hartman.

Welcome back to another episode. And this episode, I thought it was important that we talk about these little injuries that we get. And we're going to talk about tennis elbow. And let me tell you something. I don't know if you've had it before, but it is painful and you don't necessarily get it from tennis. It could be from repetitive movements. It could be from playing tennis, golf, different sports. But I just know for sure for me, what happened. I experienced it two years ago when actually I was doing some work with the New York Rangers and thank goodness for the team doctor there, but my elbow was just bothering me and it was like pinching. It was like, wow, this was tough. In fact, it was to a point where I couldn't even shake anybody's hands. And I remember what happened was I was going across in, in where we live just outside of New York City. We walked to the grocery store. And I remember I kept going to the grocery store and then carrying all these bags at one time and you're carrying water back and sure, it's just across the street and. But after a while, it just keeps getting, you know, you're, you're putting a little stress on that part of your tendons and elbows end up hurting yourself. Well, week after week or sometimes I go to the grocery store two to three times a week carrying these bags. Well, guess what? I ended up having tennis elbow. And boy, like I said, it was painful. I've had a lot of injuries as a former professional athlete, but this was just one of those nagging injuries I couldn't get rid of. Well, coming back to Charlotte, talking to Ginger, who is an expert in this area. She helps out several people, ages probably 30 to 60 years old. She's a physical therapist and she really dives into tennis elbow, how to treat it, how to avoid certain things with, like, repetitive movements. So you're really going to enjoy Ginger today. Again, I thought it was important that we bring her on. We talk about little things in details, but we don't talk about the little nagging injuries. I hope everybody enjoys the show. Here's Ginger.

Hi, I'm Ginger Morrissey, physical therapist and owner of Pinpoint Physical Therapy. I'd like to take a second to thank Mike for inviting me on the Mike Hartman Show. As a physical therapist who treats a lot of tennis players, I have seen a lot of tennis elbow. I've actually had tennis elbow myself and believe me, it wasn't fun. Although I do play tennis, I really didn't injure my elbow playing tennis. I was doing something I should not have been doing. Does that sound familiar to anyone? I was working out and I was doing the mountain climber exercise. And even though I modified it, it was still too difficult for my fitness level and my age. Please don't ask me what my age is. I'm just gonna lie. But for me, when an exercise gets challenging, I tend to turn my head, grunt a little bit, and just keep pushing through. Well, guess, guess what, that wasn't my smartest move of the day and I really should practice what I preach. So I had to go see my physical therapist and he dry needled my arm and my pain was actually resolved pretty quickly. However, every time I would go play tennis, my pain would return. So there are actually many things that can cause tennis elbow. Resolving the symptoms is the easy part, but if your provider doesn't find the cause, it's just going to keep coming back. For me, my neck had to be addressed. But I also noted that I wasn't using my hip for power with my swings. And also my trunk or my mid back was really stiff. And so these things combined resulted in me over utilizing my arm. So I had to start incorporating hip rotation during my swing. I had to work on strengthening my hip muscles. I got on the foam roller and mobilized my mid back. I also had my PT manually mobilize my mid back. All these things started to improve, but I was having trouble with my timing. So I scheduled a lesson with my tennis pro to help me get my timing down. It really takes a village. But some other causes I see in patients with with tennis elbow are the manner in which they lift things. So I've observed, you know, some of my female patients lifting a heavy purse, lifting the diaper bag with their palms down. I've also seen men lifting the car seats, backpacks, and the diaper bags with their palms down as well. When you do this, this activates the muscle that's on top of your forearm that's typically tight in someone with tennis elbow. And then the result is pain. When you're gripping anything such as a water bottle or a glass of wine, it results in that inability to hold the tennis racket or a golf club. You might even notice that if you have a tight grip on your tennis racket or golf club, that can cause tennis elbow as well. So all these things need to be addressed or you're going to have to drink your wine in the non dominant hand. So some things you can try at home before you see your physical therapist are the compression straps and you can purchase those on Amazon. You place that air pocket on that area where you have the most pain, just a few fingers below your elbow. You can stretch that muscle. You can also ice after you feel like you've done something to irritate it. I typically prefer the ice massage versus ice pack, but if you use an ice pack you just need a thin layer of fabric between your skin and the ice. Because I have seen people with ice burns burns. So tennis elbow can be addressed conservatively. I typically when I see a patient with tennis elbow, I'll dry needle those painful muscles unless there's a reason I can't. And that gripping ability returns pretty quickly and their pain resolves pretty quickly. But then we look for the cause of the tennis elbow so that you don't have to be a patient for the rest of your life. We address the cause and then you should be able to return to your sport without reoccurrences. Now let's be real. We are human and we all do stupid things from time to time and we have to go back to see our physical therapist again. That is not unusual at all. However, you shouldn't have to see me on a regular basis for the same thing. If the cause of the problem is truly addressed. I'm always happy to jump on a call or schedule an in clinic discovery visit to answer questions that people have about their tennis elbow. These calls and visits are complimentary just to see if we're a good fit for each other. This helps you make an informed decision before you decide if you want to invest. So I want to thank Mike again for inviting me and I hope all of you have an awesome and pain free day.

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