Dealing with Archer's Elbow / Tennis Elbow

I recently learned I had what is historically known as Archer's Elbow - which by modern standards is known as Tennis Elbow.

Tennis elbow or archer's elbow is a sports injury wherein the outer part of the elbow becomes sore and tender because the area has become inflamed - I have this in both my elbows. It is often associated with playing tennis, badminton, golf and similar sports which involve using the elbows a lot.

Archer's / Tennis elbow can also be caused by repetitive strain and often effects mouse / keyboard users, mountain climbers, and even people who work with their hands a lot (like carpenters).

Why does Archery cause it?

When you draw a bow, both elbows go under extreme pressure and strain.

Your bow arm elbow has to be fully extended out in front of you and held dead still.  It is your extensor muscles and tendons that are responsible for your stable positioning.  To draw the string back, it is your flexor muscles and tendons that do most of the work.  Archer’s elbow injuries are most common in your bow arm simply because your outer forearm/elbow muscles and tendons are not as strong and powerful as your inner flexor muscles. But you can also get Archer's Elbow in your drawing elbow because of the strain it requires to hold the bow steady.

Lastly when you release the bowstring there is a lot of shock and vibrations that travel through your arms and your elbows are more vulnerable.

Prevention

#1. Switch to a lighter poundage of bow or even better, switch to a compound bow that has a let off.

#2. Get dampeners and stabilizers for your bow, they will reduce shock damage.

#3. Do elbow strengthening exercises. Just make sure they are specific for tennis elbow injuries and they will work well for both prevention and treatment.

Archer's / Tennis Elbow Treatment

Physical therapy.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, like ibuprofen or aspirin.

Using heat or cold wraps.

Using a brace or strap to reduce the strain on the elbow.

Elbow Strengthening Exercises

Browse Google images to see a variety of different elbow strengthening exercises.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=tennis+elbow+exercises&tbm=isch

Remember while doing these exercises to not squeeze anything too hard and if you are experiencing pain, then you are doing it wrong. Remember light grip and no pain.

Exercise Quotes for February

"To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable." - Oscar Wilde, before he died at the age of 46.

"Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far." - Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826).

"Exercise alone provides psychological and physical benefits. However, if you also adopt a strategy that engages your mind while you exercise, you can get a whole host of psychological benefits fairly quickly." - James Rippe, M.D.

"Dig where the gold is…unless you just need some exercise." - John M. Capozzi.

"Extreme exercise doesn’t save you from poor food choices. It can be difficult to exercise and erase away that chocolate cake or pizza pie. It doesn’t work that way." - Jennifer Hudson.

"To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart - and to keep them in parallel vigor one must exercise, study and love." - Karl von Bonstetten.

"Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness." - Joseph Addison.

"Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself." - Elie Wiesel.

"Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumbbells? To dig a vineyard is worthier exercise for men." - Marcus Valerius Martialis (40 AD - 103 AD).

Note - I could not believe the above quote is real. Did they really have dumbbells 20 centuries ago??? So I decided to do some research, and yes, they really did have dumbbells that many centuries ago. Below are some dumbbells (known as Halteres) from Ancient Greece. They look very different, but not so different as to be unrecognizable. So I learned something today. Huzzah!

What does it take to become an Olympic archer?

Q

"I am from venezuela, I have nine years practicing archery and I love this sport, it's part of my life...

All coaches left my country to other countries by the abuse and the low value given to them, I have a few years of training without a coach, in 2010 I traveled to Canada to my grandmother's house and told him all the things I passed in archery in my country and she took me to an archery in calgary and helped me to buy a bow ( hoyt Alpha Burner) and talk to a Canadian coach to train me.

thanks to that I improve a lot and achieve shoot 1348 points, I know it's not much but fight hard to achieve...

I want to be an excellent archer, that's my goal, you could guide me, because I want to go to canada and become a excellent Canadia archer, what i have to do? there is a chance?

Please. Any help you can give me is appreciated."

Luis R.

A

Hello Luis!

Honestly you have three choices. And two of them will be quite expensive.

You either train yourself, which will cost less and require you to be doing archery 3-6 times per week.

Or you hire an archery coach to train you several times per week, which will cost you about $180 to $240 per week. (Roughly $9,000 to $12,000 per year.)

Or you could even hire a former Olympian archer to train you, which will be about $20,000 per year ($400 per week).

So yeah, it really depends on whether you want to pay for training or focus on self-improvement / Do It Yourself.

Sincerely,
Charles Moffat
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In other news Arnold Schwarzenegger recently went "undercover" at Gold's Gym in California to raise awareness about fitness / health and an after school fitness program.

Rob Ford's Weight Loss Plan

It is an election year in Toronto and Rob Ford thinks he can win the October 27th 2014 election and stay mayor of Toronto - if he can just lose some weight.

"The only way people are going to respect me, to bring back my image, is if I lose weight," says Rob Ford. "The rest falls into place."

And in case you haven't been watching lately, Toronto's crack smoking mayor (soon to be former crack smoking mayor?) has lost roughly 40 lbs since mid November 2013 when he was weighing in at 336 lbs and is now weighing in at roughly 295 lbs.

That is 41 lbs in 2 months. Roughly 9 weeks. A little over 4 lbs per week.

If he keeps going at that rate he is going to be 255 lbs by mid March - and have excess loose skin rolling off of him.

If he kept it up he could even be 205 lbs by mid May. In which case the loose skin around his face is going to become like Diefenbaker's jowls.

My thoughts? Slow down. Lose weight more slowly. Wait for your skin to catch up. If you lose weight too quickly your belly skin will end up looking like an apron.

So what exactly is Rob Ford doing in the gym you might ask?

Well Toronto's mayor, who has described himself in the past as "three hundred pounds of fun", is using the gym at Toronto City Hall almost every day and is also:

Jogging outdoors.

Leg Pressing 810 lbs.

Ford is really good at the leg press and also says he aims to one day leg press 1,000 pounds.

“If I do my bi(ceps)s on Monday, say, then I’ll do my legs Tuesday, chest Thursday, back, and so on, all week,” says Rob Ford.

He is doing a combination of cardio for 45 minutes and weight lifting exercises for another 45 minutes.

To put that in perspective a 295 lb person jogging for 45 minutes (without a break) burns 996 calories. We can assume that he is having breaks, so it will be less than that - possible 600 to 700 calories. The same person doing weightlifting for 45 minutes burns 305 calories.

So we are looking at Rob Ford burning about 900 to 1000 calories per 90 minute workout session. No wonder he is losing 20 lbs per month.

Note - This kind of workout is really difficult. Most people would quit within the first couple of weeks. Having a personal trainer to keep you motivated makes a huge difference in keeping motivated and striving for more.

Politics aside, if Rob Ford can go into the 2014 election "lean, mean and clean" he will have a lot more energy for the campaign and be able to put his best foot forward when it comes to trying and convince people he has changed his ways and is deserving of being re-elected.