The Bandeja Magazine Issue 1

health
health
Padel elbow
by Neil Bilton
Tennis elbow (or lateral epicondylitis to give it its medical
name) is a common affliction for padel players.
The BoblPadel boys...
Richard (Bowles) and I were at school together, where we both fell
in love with squash. We were lucky enough to live near The Triangle
leisure centre in Burgess Hill when the padel court was built there
and instantly fell in love with the game. We now split our time
between The Triangle and the pop-up court at Withdean Sports
Complex in Brighton. We play with friends and like to travel to other
courts for coaching and to meet new players.
We set up Boblpadel (www.boblpadel.com) to help spread the
word about padel and give people a choice of the best rackets
on the market teamed with excellent customer service. We’ve
also established the Padel for School scheme to encourage more
children into the game by providing rackets to them.
It is both annoying and really
painful, as Neil Bilton discovered
when he developed the condition.
Here he charts its onset, his
recovery and gives his layman’s
advice for dealing with it.
Let’s start with a disclaimer. I am not
a doctor or a physio or a faith healer
but I have, and still do occasionally,
suffer from tennis elbow. All advice
below is from a layman and drawn
from experience.
If you haven’t suffered from tennis
elbow you are one of the lucky ones.
If you have, then you know all about
that innocuous pain which isn’t really
there until you pick up a scalding hot
cup of coffee and your elbow screams
so loud you spill it on yourself, or when
turning the key in your front door hurts
so much you think about living in the
garden for the rest of your life.
The onset is sudden, the pain is very,
very nasty and the length of the
healing process is just too long to
be acceptable.
Within the group of guys I play with,
70% have experienced it at some point.
We all come from different disciplines
of racket sports so it’s not a specific
sport that makes you susceptible.
Both Richard and I have had it with
differing levels of pain (but obviously
mine was significantly worse than his).
What is padel elbow?
It’s basically inflammation of the tendon
where the forearm muscle connects
to the elbow joint. It normally happens
because of an injury or overuse of
the muscle which then won’t move
properly and so the tendon needs to
compensate (tendons aren’t really
designed to stretch and move around
like muscles). Eventually the tendon
rubs the bone entry point and becomes
inflamed. Then it just hurts. A lot.
It can be caused by lots of different
things. From shoulder mobility, tight
forearm muscles, a wrist strain or
even an impact injury to a finger.
We have experienced the onset from
a multitude of innocuous events.
From scraping moss off a roof, trying
to start garden equipment or just
clipping a padel ball off the frame of a
padel racket. You feel it, you hate it, you
pray it will just go away and then you
mentally cry a little.
How we dealt with it
Richard and I are different people,
we behave differently, sometimes
impatiently, sometimes aggressively
and sometimes stupidly. We have both
gone down the physio route, do this, do
that and REST. We have gone down the
YouTube self-heal route - do this, don’t
do that and REST. And we have gone
down the enforced lockdown route, do
nothing (while getting fat) and being
www.boblpadel.com
“
It’s the same thing as
tennis elbow but just that
”
little bit cooler.
forced to REST. To be fair the latter one
did work somewhat but it’s not that
practical on a long term basis.
Rest definitely helps. And it gives you
no idea of when to start playing again.
Many a false start has occurred which
immediately puts your 2-3 week rest
period back to square one.
What can you do when
padel elbow strikes?
Get some ice on it when you feel it or
when you aggravate it. While that bag
of peas is slowly defrosting, think about
your rehab period because right now
it’s a waiting game. When you decide
to go back to padel you are probably
going to need a pressure strap. We
have tried several and we have found
that the main thing is that it should be
reasonably tight (but obviously don’t cut
your blood supply off!) The cheaper ones
will come loose quite often during play
and will need to be tightened regularly
but everyone has different budgets and
that, obviously, will affect your choice.
The strap effectively shortens the muscle
and ‘locks off’ the point at which the
tendon moves and hurts. Always
follow the strap instructions. We found
straps useful as a rehab tool after the
REST period. We do not think a strap
should be bought as an alternative
to the REST period.
38 thebandeja.com the UK padel magazine - May 2022
39
Warm-ups
This is something we should all do but
they generally seem to amount to the
last 30 seconds before going on court,
having arrived 30 seconds before that.
Amongst our friends what seems to
count as as a warm-up can be as
short as a couple of (tight) hamstring
stretches or maybe one knee-clicking
squat. Then it’s straight onto court to
smash balls at each other as hard as
we can across the net.
What does help?
I now get to the court 15 minutes early
and have made it part of my padel
routine. I do some simple arm swings,
shoulder rotations and then begin to
mimic certain padel shots but without
the racket. I then add the padel racket
and repeat the process with the added
weight and air resistance that the
racket brings to the movements.
Neil Bilton & Richard Bowles
I lightly stretch my shoulders and wrists
against a wall. All this takes me about
5mins and since I started doing it I’ve
had no issues with tennis elbow. Richard
was doing this with me until his elbow
got better and he stopped. He now has
tennis elbow again and is into his two
weeks off while he RESTS it.
Ps: I think we need to claim the name
for ourselves. Going forward I will say
that I have previously suffered from
‘Padel Elbow’. It’s the same thing as
tennis elbow but just that little bit cooler.
Kind of the same as Richard and me, we
are both men of roughly the same age
but I am just that little bit cooler!
Here is what the NHS says about tennis
elbow. Click here. Here is a useful
Exercise PDF for stretches.
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