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Golfer’s elbow vs tennis elbow comes up in this clinic all the time, usually with somebody who plays neither sport telling me so, slightly indignantly. If gripping has become the thing you brace yourself for, whether that’s a kettle, a drill, a steering wheel or a toddler’s hand, it’s worth getting it assessed rather than waiting it out – physiotherapy in Waterloo or chiropractic care in Waterloo.
Let’s talk about why this one hangs around, shall we?
The sport names are historical, not diagnostic
“Tennis elbow” and “golfer’s elbow” are old labels that stuck because those sports happened to load the arm in a recognisable way. What they actually describe is where it usually hurts, roughly: tennis elbow on the outside of the elbow, golfer’s elbow on the inside. Most of the people who get either one play neither sport, which tells you something about how useful the names are.
That’s genuinely all they tell you. Nothing about what tissue is involved, how bad it is, or what to do next. Plenty of people with those symptom patterns have something else going on entirely. So I treat them as handy shorthand and a poor diagnosis, and I’d encourage you to hold them loosely (the way you’d hold a nickname, not a verdict).1
Why gripping in particular
Because gripping, funnily enough, is not really a hand movement. The muscles that close your hand run up your forearm and attach around the elbow. So an elbow problem tends to announce itself when you pick up a full mug, not when you bend your elbow.
That’s also why it can be so persistent. Can you rest your grip? Not really: every door, every phone, every bag, every steering wheel is another repetition. You can’t exactly take a week off from having hands (some days I’d take that offer!). It’s not that you’re doing something wrong. It’s that the tissue involved is asked to work every few minutes of your waking life.
What tends to have changed beforehand
When people tell me the story, something usually shifted a few weeks before the elbow spoke up. More of something, a new task, a heavier tool, a longer stretch of the same movement, or a return to something after a break. Sometimes it’s less obvious, like a patch of poor sleep, a stressful stretch, or a change in what the rest of the week looked like. Sound familiar?
None of that is blame, I promise. It’s just where the useful questions live. The balance between what you’re asking of the arm and what it can currently handle is the very thing an assessment is trying to understand.
What an assessment is actually sorting out
More than the elbow, which surprises people.
The story comes first: what changed, what hurts, what you can and can’t do now. Then how the elbow, wrist and hand behave, and what your grip is currently like. Then the neck and the nerves, because symptoms in a forearm and hand can come from somewhere else entirely. Pins and needles or numbness point in a different direction from load-related pain. And then the demands of your actual week, since a plumber and a person on a laptop are not solving the same problem.
What it is not doing is confirming a diagnosis from the fact that the outside of your elbow hurts. That’s a pattern, not an answer.
What usually forms the core of a plan
For many lateral elbow pain presentations, progressive loading and function-based rehabilitation are the central options. In plain terms: gradually and deliberately asking the arm to do more, guided by how it responds, and aimed at the tasks you actually need it for.
Rehabilitation broadly works by progressing movement you can tolerate toward the strength, endurance and capacity your real life demands. What belongs in your programme depends on your assessment: tissue, severity, stage, medical history and your goals all change it.
You’ll notice there are no exercises in this post, and the reason deserves saying plainly. The clinical guideline for this condition publishes no dose, timeline or session count at all, so any specific programme printed here would be invented, not guideline-backed. That isn’t a good enough basis for handing you a plan through a screen.234
Braces, taping and hands-on care
These come up constantly, so let’s place them properly.
Straps, braces, taping and manual therapy may have a role for some people as additions to a plan, based on assessment. What none of them does is repair a tendon, break down scar tissue, or prevent this happening again. If you find a strap makes a specific task more manageable while you work on capacity, that’s a perfectly reasonable use of it. It isn’t the treatment, and it shouldn’t be sold to you as one.56
Two messages that usually make it worse
“Rest it completely until it stops hurting.” Total rest is rarely the whole plan, and it’s often impossible anyway given everything your hands do all day. Reducing the aggravating load is a very different thing from switching the arm off.
“It takes exactly X weeks.” No it doesn’t, and nobody can tell you the number. This one is frequently slow, which is frustrating and worth hearing honestly up front instead of discovering after the promised date passes. Honestly, I’d take you being a little annoyed with me now over you being disappointed later.56
When elbow or grip pain needs medical assessment
Please arrange appropriate assessment for a significant injury, an obvious deformity, an inability to use the arm, sudden loss of strength after an injury, substantial swelling or redness, fever, progressive weakness or numbness, or neurological symptoms in the arm or hand. Sudden strength loss following an injury is not a routine overuse assumption. This list isn’t exhaustive and isn’t a diagnostic tool.17
What happens if you come in
What I can tell you is what you’re booking for: somebody sitting down with you to work out what’s driving this, what to change in your week right now, and how to build the arm back toward the things you’ve been avoiding. Our treatments page has the wider picture if you’re not sure which door to come through.
Take care of those elbows,
Dr. Katie