Tennis elbow is a fairly common and painful injury.
It can negatively impact your training as so many exercises need your elbows (and the muscles surrounding them) to be in top condition.
Well, in this article, we share the answers to some frequently asked questions about push-ups and how they relate to tennis elbow.
Knowing these answers can help you prevent getting this nasty injury, so read on!
Can Push-Ups Cause Tennis Elbow?
Tennis elbow is commonly caused by overuse of your elbow and forearm.
As your elbows and forearms are heavily used in push-ups, it makes sense that the exercise can cause tennis elbow.
Repetitive motions or lifting heavy weights can also lead to tennis elbow which, again, makes push-ups a prime candidate for causing this type of injury.
Can You Do Push-Ups With Tennis Elbow?
In general, you shouldn’t do too much resistance exercise with tennis elbow.
Obviously, this isn’t always the case as you could do lower body and core sessions with minimal impact on your elbow.
However, as a general rule, it’s best to avoid doing push-ups with tennis elbow.
If you’re in any doubt as to what types of exercise you can do with tennis elbow, it’s worth speaking to a medical professional who should be able to advise you what you can do without hindering the recovery process of your injured elbow.
How To Do Push-Ups With Tennis Elbow
If you’ve been told that you can still do push-ups with tennis elbow, then there are certain things you might want to do to help keep things moving in the right direction.
You might find that a tennis elbow support or strap helps stabilise and protect your elbow while you’re doing push-ups.
You’ll likely benefit from doing just a few push-ups to begin with until your elbow has recovered enough to be able to handle more reps and sets.
Also, warming up your arms muscles before doing push-ups can help ensure you aren’t making the injury any worse.
Should You Do Push-Ups With Tennis Elbow?
This will ultimately depend on the severity of the injury, the amount of pain you’re in, and whether a medical professional has advised you to do so.
Push-ups can play an important role in helping to improve tennis elbow.
As push-ups can help strengthen the muscles around your elbow, they can actually help in the recovery process.
However, push-ups can also make tennis elbow worse (or even cause it in the first place).
With that in mind, it’s important to properly consider whether push-ups are the best thing for you to be doing with tennis elbow.
There’s no clear answer to whether or not you should do push-ups with tennis elbow.
For some people, the answer is yes while for others, the answer is no.
Can Push-Ups Make Tennis Elbow Worse?
Yes, push-ups can potentially make tennis elbow worse.
While it’s true that push-ups can help during the recovery from tennis elbow, you should only do them when a medical professional advises to do so.
Push-ups put a lot of stress on your elbows and the muscles surrounding them so there’s a real chance that they can make your injury worse if you don’t do them correctly.
Are Hindu Push-Ups Bad For Tennis Elbow?
Hindu push-ups are pretty much a cross between some yoga movements and push-ups.
While they may place a little less stress on your elbows, they can still be quite challenging to perform correctly.
They may not be bad for tennis elbow but they aren’t necessarily good for it either.
As always, you should seek advice from a medical professional who can discuss whether this type of exercise is suitable for you to do with tennis elbow.
How To Avoid Getting Tennis Elbow When Doing Push-Ups
One of the easiest ways of reducing the chances of getting tennis elbow when doing push-ups is to properly warm up up before doing them.
Make sure to stretch your triceps and forearms effectively and ensure your arms have good levels of mobility.
It’s also a good idea to build up the intensity of your push-ups gradually to ensure your muscles and joints can handle the stress being placed on them.
Conclusion
In summary:
- Push-ups can cause tennis elbow in certain people, particularly if you do too many of them.
- It’s best to avoid doing push-ups if you already have tennis elbow as it may make the condition worse.
That’s all for this article, but can push ups help with pull ups? Or perhaps you’re interested in diamond push-ups vs regular?
Hope this helped!
Sources
I’ve been in the fitness and strength training industry for nearly a decade. In that time, I’ve gained 30 pounds of muscle, written hundreds of articles, and reviewed dozens of fitness supplements. As for my educational background, I’m a currently studying for my Active IQ Level 3 Diploma in Personal Training.