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How can I prevent elbow tendonitis and/or relieve its early-onset symptoms mid-climbing competition?

Is there a special way to wrap the arm or something? Or special way to treat it in-between rounds?

minseong
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  • Mid-tournament of what? Rounds of what? This question is severely lacking in details. It can be re-opened once we know more about what you're dealing with. – Alec Feb 26 '22 at 15:45
  • @Alec it's climbing. What sport is there that you would treat elbow tendonitis differently to than in climbing? – minseong Feb 26 '22 at 15:49
  • Obviously make sure you warm up the relevant forearm muscles properly beforehand, and you could try using some voodoo floss to relieve the pain, though honestly your best bet is to actually fix the problem rather than try and deal with it mid-comp. – Dark Hippo Feb 26 '22 at 17:44
  • @theonlygusti - Off the top of my head, any sport where elbow tendinitis is the result of explosive use rather than extended periods of tension. Tennis, badminton, lacrosse, baseball, golf, handball... off the top of my head. Though, agreeing with Dark Hippo, I must say that the one thing they all have in common is that tendinitis should be treated with rest, lest it become chronic. – Alec Feb 26 '22 at 18:06
  • @Alec what's the difference in treatment during climbing vs during tennis? – minseong Feb 26 '22 at 18:10
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    No idea. As far as I know, the only "real" treatment is rest. Everything else is a risk. In any case, I would suggest editing out the treatment part of the question. Any existing injury should be consulted with a doctor and not the internet, and is off-topic here. But the tendinitis prevention part is on-topic. – Alec Feb 26 '22 at 19:14
  • I'm actually going to disagree with @Alec ever-so-slightly here based on my own experience; I found that yes, resting did indeed help, but certain exercises also seem to help lessen the pain as much as or more than resting, plus they seemed to have helped it in general. I don't want to put it as an answer as it doesn't actually answer your question, but I found things like single arm kettlebell swings, thick handle mace work and club swinging helped. I suspect they address a muscle imbalance between the front two and back two fingers as well as stretching out the tendons in question – Dark Hippo Feb 28 '22 at 11:10
  • I have had very good luck with eccentric exercises (treating tennis elbow for example). The exact exercise depends on which tendons are affected. – michael Feb 28 '22 at 13:58

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Regarding "relieve its symptoms", I found simple painkillers (paracetamol alone) to be extremely effective. There was no pain at all after taking just 500mg.

minseong
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    Painkillers just mask the symptom by numbing the pain... It doesn't improve your tendonitis, once the effect wears off you're back to square 1. – Luciano Jul 29 '22 at 10:02