Rickard Gustafsson | Saturday, 1 February 2025
Since the last time I wrote about pain in the elbow area I have learned some new things that have helped me progress in the recovery. On the post Paul made on Facebook to share the FP David Thompson commented and shared what he has used to recover from fly casting elbow. That was some good stuff and I have been using it since I read about it and made really good progress with my pain. It has made the recovery progress better than with my own strategies.
This is what David shared on Facebook:
“Been dealing with this for more than 2 year - tennis elbow and forearm pain. Not just from casting but from playing fish, even with a spinning rod.
Doing two very simple exercises from the physiotherapist RELIGIOUSLY TWICE A DAY have improved things dramatically in a month.”
“This one with a broom, moving the grip point out 2cm each morning. 40 reps morn & night. But I rotate all the way in and all the way out - not stopping at vertical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IulGGFMFtaI
And this first one with a band 15 reps morn & night BUT use your other hand to help bring the wrist back up, then slowly lower the wrist under band tension for a count of 3 or 4.
https://www.sunderlandims.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/sland_msk_tennis_elbow_exercises.pdf”
Since then I have also found this video, it is in Swedish though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e9ksFgKhmo
But it is quite similar to the things David shared. They both make use of the banded exercise with focus on only the eccentric phase of the exercise. Looking around eccentric training is a common strategy to recover from pains resulting from overexertion. I dove in head first and loaded up the exercise quite heavy, I figured that if I should only focus on the eccentric part it should be quite heavy. Eccentric training can be painful from the muscular perspective, working slowly with a heavy load. It was at the same time painful in the way that I loaded some aggravated muscle or tendon. The pain was noticeable but still not like this is bad kind of pain.
But after performing this exercise things felt better, I could feel a difference after just performing it once. And keeping at it for a while now there is a big improvement.
I have been looking around a bit into this kind of training for recovery purposes and have found something interesting it is like that exercise is painful is helpful for the recovery. Here is one study on the subject:
Eccentric training in the treatment of tendinopathy
Jonsson, Per
Umeå University, Faculty of Medicine, Surgical and Perioperative Sciences, Sports Medicine.
https://umu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A234360&dswid=4222
In hindsight it would maybe have been wiser to start lighter and build up to a load so heavy I can only use it for eccentric training. That’s how I would recommend others to get started and over time build up to a heavy load but don’t be afraid of pain. I’m quite sure that this is the exercise that has helped me the most in the recovery process. But still after working on this exercise I still was bothered by a feeling that some things around the affected area was sticking together and aggravating things. I tried to massage the area and the parts upstream and downstream the area but couldn’t get rid of the feeling until I tried something a bit more esoteric.
Voodoo flossing. I stumbled upon this method when I was competing in olympic weightlifting. I remember that it worked then but still discarded it as a fluke. It is such a strange concept. But it has helped this time also. Wrap up the area with the pain in a strong rubber strap, move around and the pain is drastically improved. The first time I tried it to get a strap for this you had to cut up an inner tube for bicycle. Now pre-made straps can be bought with the advantage of being a bit softer than the inner tube.
I will let the guy making the technique popular describe it more in detail, Kelly Starrett, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVWjVSQXsl4
And an old video that shows how to make your own voodoo band, https://glennpendlay.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/got-tendonitis/
Cheers, Rickard
Bonus: A fix for all your fly casting problems, think of where the power should be going.