What is Tennis Elbow?

We spoke with experts, Jamie Mckeon, from the IMG Academy in Florida and, Louis Fresneau, from the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Nice, to find out.

Mckeon gives a good overview, stating – ‘The medical term is actually called lateral epicondylitis so you have something in your elbow called an epicondyle, which is just a part of one of your bones, that part attaches to all these extensor muscles in your forearm and we know there’s going to be a lot of trauma to this part of your forearm. When there is trauma or repetitive motion these muscles get tight, maybe they’re weak or it’s just going to pull on that part of the bone, cause some inflammation and unfortunately a lot of pain’.

So, given this information, what can we do to prevent it?

Top Tips for preventing Tennis Elbow

Work on a simple routine and keep consistency. What this means is that you need to make sure you work on this all the time and not just at the first emergence of pain. The aim of the game is prevention, so being proactive is better than being reactive.

For more specific tips, the physios at the academies take you through the best exercises you can do in the video above, in order to maximize the health of your arm as a Tennis player. These method of course extend to all racket sports, like Squash, Padel, Badminton and yes even Table Tennis.

How can the right racket help?

Of course there are a few other things to think about. At Dunlop, we don’t want to make products that can cause a person pain, while we know this can be a by-product of playing racket sports regularly – Our rackets use Sonic Core Infinergy by BASF as our primary technology to ensure minimal vibrations with maximum rebound in order to minimize impact on your arms. We also highly recommend that you watch our videos about strings and rackets to get an understanding about how different racket attributes can effect your arm and your elbow. Sometimes, you may need a slightly less stiff racket or you may be able to release a little tension in your strings to alleviate some tension on your arm.

Important Conclusion

It’s very important to note that none of this is official medical advice. We always advocate for checking with a doctor or physio so that information can be tailored to you specifically. Each person is always slightly different and so there can be no guarantees but it’s always a good idea to be as cautious as you can be when it comes to your own health.