One of the treatments that almost every health practitioner recommends for tennis elbow relief is the use of ice to decrease inflammation and decrease pain. Because ice seems like such a simple type of treatment, many people assume they can figure out how to use it.

Below is a little test to see how much you truly know about how to use ice for tennis elbow.

How Do You Use Ice For Tennis Elbow?

1. True or false: When you use an ice pack for tennis elbow relief, place the ice pack on the part of your elbow closest to the body.

2. True or false: If you don’t have an official ice pack, take an ice cube out of the freezer (or a few ice cubes and wrap in a washcloth) and use that.

3. True or false: If you don’t have an official ice pack, take a thick frozen steak out of the freezer and use that on the elbow for tennis elbow pain.

4. What do you do with the ice pack after you get it out of the freezer?

5. What is the purpose of the towels in ice therapy for tennis pain relief?

6. True or false: It’s okay to rub an ice cube right over the elbow joint to get elbow pain relief.

7. True or false: Nowadays, there’s a new type of cold pack made out of buckwheat that can be used for a cold pack. To use this, place in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes prior to use.

8. Multiple answers. How long should you leave a cold pack on your elbow?

1. 5 minutes and no more
2. 10 minutes and no more
3. 15 minutes and no more
4. until you freeze the elbow
5. until your elbow feels the cold without freezing it
6. until your elbow gets cold, then it’s done
7. none of these

9. What should you do after icing your tennis elbow?

10. If you are going to exercise your elbow, is it better to ice it before or after the exercise and why?

11. How many times a day should you use ice for tennis elbow pain relief?

Tennis Elbow Treatment Test Answers

1. False. Tennis elbow affects the outer part of the elbow, not the inner part. The ice pack should go on top of the outer part of the elbow, not the inner part.

2. True. But don’t use it directly on the skin.

3. True. A steak may be substituted for an ice pack if you really are in dire straights for tennis elbow relief.

4. After placing 3 to 4 single layers of towels on your elbow, place the ice pack on top. Then cover the ice pack with another towel layer.

5. The towels prevent the freezing of the skin and allow the cold to diffuse into the area slowly. It’s more effective this way.

6. False. Rubbing an ice cube directly over the elbow joint may seem effective, but it is the wrong application of ice. When you do it this way, you subject the tissues to too much cold at one time. Ever hear of frostbite? Frostbite can leave a body part sensitive to cold for the rest of one’s life.

7. False. The buckwheat cold packs should be placed in the freezer, not the refrigerator. When using the buckwheat cold pack, you may still use one towel layer in between the cold pack and your elbow.

8. B and E are the correct answers.

9. You may follow ice treatment with heat. This will bring new circulation to the area.

10. If you are planning on exercising your elbow, icing it before the exercise would not do you much good because it will numb your elbow so that you are unable to feel pain. This can result in creating more damage inside the elbow joint and on the tendon. Ice your elbow after the exercise.

11. As often as you need to. Even once an hour is fine.

How did you do? No matter what you scored on this test, you are now, no doubt, ready to use ice for tennis elbow relief.

But don’t forget that you can’t keep icing your elbow until doomsday. Sooner or later you’ll have to strengthen the tendons and muscles in the elbow region.

What exercises will you do? Probably the easiest way to find out is to get the book, Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

It may be difficult to believe that tennis elbow acupuncture treatment is something that the entire world is interested in. But it’s true.

The World Health Organization is the health authority for the United Nations. Its goal is to step in and be the leader on all global health matters, especially public health matters.

The WHO determines health trends, decides on standards for how different disease should be treated and researched, and is supposed to help out countries when their health needs exceed their resources.

Tennis elbow is a tendonitis disorder that isn’t limited to just America. People of every culture have tendonitis, and tennis elbow may be one of the types prevalent in their society.

The people may not be hitting a tennis ball repetitively but even the act of repetitively carrying water on top of one’s head may be enough to cause a type of tendonitis.

Because the WHO is globally minded and open to other cultures, they realized that the treatments of acupuncture for tennis elbow and acupuncture for tendonitis are performed in over 10 different countries.

After evaluating the studies on it from different cultures, they accepted acupuncture as a valid treatment for tennis elbow in 2003.

How Many U.S. Doctors View Alternative Medicine

This was a good view for the WHO, compared to the view that many U.S. doctors take on alternative medicine of any kind.

You see, the U.S. is pretty snobbish when it comes to medical research. U.S. medical doctors sit around at their conferences discussing only the research studies that are from “peer-reviewed” journals.

If you’re a scientist and you go through all the effort it takes to complete a study and then publish it in a scientific journal that isn’t peer-reviewed, your research won’t mean a thing to U.S. doctors.

They’ll snub you and walk away. The nice doctors may listen to you first, then snub you.

And there’s a problem with this bad attitude. As the scientific community gets larger and larger with scientists collaborating from all around the world, the research from other countries is often not included into these peer-reviewed journals.

The medical docs here in the U.S. don’t believe that anyone in other countries could truly have the upper edge on medicine, or could do research that found something significant.

On the other hand, the American public doesn’t care if research is peer-reviewed or not. All they care about is what works and what could help them get healthier.

Tennis elbow and tendonitis sufferers are open to someone else’s treatments or natural remedies if they’re in another country.

You see, most Chinese research isn’t from peer-reviewed journals which meets the U.S. medical doctor standard.

And this doesn’t make them idiots and their research worthless. They’ve been practicing Chinese acupuncture for over 4000 years. That’s 350+ times longer than the American Medical Association has even been in business.

Acupuncture is used to treat over 200 different medical conditions. Acupuncture for tendonitis is a commonly used treatment – and it works quite well.

Acupuncturists don’t care what the U.S. doctors and scientists think of them.

In fact, this snobby U.S. doctor attitude is really an opportunity for other scientists to excel in the fields of each branch of medicine. It can help make acupuncture for tennis elbow the #1 most sought out treatment worldwide.

Acupuncture For Tennis Elbow Works!

Acupuncturists say that out of all the medical disorders to treat, tennis elbow is one of the easiest to treat. They also report up to a 90% success rate.

In one U.S. study of 22 patients who received acupuncture for tennis elbow, it’s a shame but none of the peer-reviewed journals will ever be able to enlighten their doctor readers about the results.

The study was coordinated by Christine Deignan, M.D. at the Work Fitness Center in Bettendorf, Iowa. She wanted to see if they could save money for insurance companies by using acupuncture for tennis elbow patients.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, when an area of the body is overworked such as the elbow in those with tennis elbow, the person’s energy levels or chi are also overworked.

This causes malnutrition in the area of the tendon and muscle. The same thing is true for any type of tendonitis caused by repetitive use.

The Chinese practitioners increase chi (energy) in the body and nourish the tendons and muscles to get a complete body healing.

Cookbook Medicine Is Always A Problem

In Dr. Deignan’s study, they simply used the acupuncture needles without the nourishment aspect of Chinese medicine. This could be because the WHO guidelines on how a practitioner learns acupuncture are somewhat lame.

The WHO suggests that doctors take an abbreviated course on acupuncture so that they can start using it right away in their practices.

The doctors learn cookbook medicine in order to start making money from acupuncture, in the format of “If the patient has xyz disease, treat these points.”

This is a sure way to deny the physician any insight into how a treatment plan is even created; it doesn’t give them the skills to practice acupuncture with the highest degree of effectiveness.

This same attitude of “If the patient has xyz disease, treat it like this” is what is causing many doctors to leave the field of medicine once the Obama health care plan is initiated.

Acupuncture For Tendonitis Is Generally Successful

Despite the lack of thoroughness in treating the tennis elbow patient, her study showed that 86% of the patients resolved their condition or showed improvement.

Improvement was defined as a patient that didn’t complain about the tennis elbow and also didn’t need painkillers anymore.

The type of acupuncture that was done in this study was with standard needles and electrostimulation of the needles.

But there’s something else you should know about this study. Most of the patients with the tennis elbow were ones that had no relief from any other method. And that alone tells us that acupuncture really does have great merit.

The beauty of acupuncture for tendonitis is that someone doesn’t have to miss work for extended periods of time as they would with surgery.

If your health insurance won’t allow you to see an acupuncturist for your tennis elbow or tendonitis, you may want to get the book, Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed. This book will show you the home exercises you can do to self-correct your tennis elbow.

Thus, it’s important to know that recovering from tennis elbow must include a way for those tendons and connective tissues to get stronger. Only when this is addressed will you be able to get total relief.

Why Weak Connective Tissue Will Debilitate You

That’s because weak tendons, ligaments, muscles and bones will only bring you pain and misery. This pain and misery shows up in the form of:

• further injuries
• prolonged healing times
• inflammation
• disuse of the part of the body that’s affected leading to disability

And all these bring on even more weakness, which contributes to additional problems. It literally becomes impossible to improve tennis elbow unless you use these principles of how to strengthen your connective tissues.

Weak connective tissue that is allowed to go on for a long period of time will only bring on more weakness and the cycle must be broken. So how will you break the cycle before it’s too late?

The answer is to heal the connective tissue in two ways: from within and on the outside. In this article we will focus on how to heal tennis elbow from within.

Heal the Connective Tissue From Within

Every part of your body is synthesized from within. Your liver makes proteins that are sent to different parts of the body. Once the strings of amino acids arrive at an organ or site that needs repair, the healing begins.

But it’s not only proteins that are needed to reach your elbow joint and heal your tennis elbow.

Here’s what your body needs to make this happen: proteins, antioxidants which are vitamins, and minerals.

1. Proteins are the Foundation of Strong Connective Tissue

High-quality proteins, called complete proteins, already have the required long strings of amino acids that connective tissue needs. When you eat animal products, poultry, beef, pork and lamb, your body extracts the long strings of amino acids with the help of enzymes.

This saves the body the step of combining them from foods such as rice and beans that are eaten at the same meal.

2. Antioxidants are Like a Military Force Inside Your Joints and Tendons

Vitamins such as Vitamin A and Vitamin C have antioxidant actions that help strengthen the new proteins formed in the connective tissues that surround the elbow joint and are in the forearm.

These antioxidants can keep microbes from attacking the new connective tissue, and prevent any toxins or chemicals produced inside the body from destroying the tissues as well. This is a very important function that must be performed when someone has lateral epicondylitis.

Vitamin A Deficiency Can Prolong Your Pain

Vitamin A hastens wound healing, prevents the formation of scars, and strengthens cell walls, and increases the rate of RNA production. It helps promote a good appetite as well.

Deficiency results in rough, dry skin, loss of the sense of smell, night blindness, corneal ulcers, delayed healing, and softening of the bones and teeth.

What Foods Will Increase My Vitamin A Levels?

Vitamin A is found in the following foods:

• liver
• eggs
• yellow / orange fruits
• dark green fruits and vegetables.

Fish liver oil is also a rich source.

Vitamin C Deficiency Makes Collagen Content in Tendons Dwindle to Nothing

Vitamin C helps preserve the integrity of discs in the vertebral column and speeds up healing of all tissues. It maintains the collagen in the connective tissue. The synovial fluid in joints is rich in vitamin C.

Vitamin C deficiency results in bruising, bleeding gums, slow healing of connective tissue – muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, and capillary rupture. It’s also related to a poor immune system.

What Foods Will Increase My Vitamin C Levels?

Vitamin C is found in these foods:

• citrus fruits
• acerola
• camu camu
• rose hips
• cantaloupe
• strawberries
• broccoli
• tomatoes
• green peppers

3. Direct Connection of Minerals to Tennis Elbow

Minerals such as manganese, silicon, and zinc are the most important when you have tennis elbow.

Small amounts of these minerals are needed to form certain types of bonds within the new strong connective tissue. When these essential elements are missing, deficiency symptoms will show up.

Manganese – Deficiency Can Even Cause Paralysis

Manganese is absolutely essential for the formation of bone and cartilage. Manganese is associated with muscle coordination and muscle strength.

A deficiency can result in tendons snapping out of their origins without any provocation.

Other deficiency symptoms include increased allergy sensitivities towards foods and chemicals, inflammation in the body, fatigue, no endurance during exercise, and even paralysis and seizures.

It’s pretty easy to see how this mineral, when found in low levels, is problematic in those with tennis elbow.

The inflammation along with the problems with muscle coordination and strength (seen when someone cannot grip a coffee cup), is a pretty obvious sign that the connective tissue is lacking this important mineral.

What Foods Will Increase My Manganese Levels?

Manganese is found in the following foods:

• grains
• blueberries
• egg yolks
• legumes
• dried peas
• pineapples
• spinach
• green leafy vegetables

Silicon Deficiency Linked with Many Cartilage, Joint, Bone and Tendon Disorders

Surprising to some, when silicon is added to the diet, suddenly – within a matter of a few weeks – joints and body aches and pains in the connective tissue go away or are significantly less. Many people have even found that they don’t need painkillers anymore.

Your body cannot synthesize collagen in the right amounts or at the right rate when there is a silicon deficiency. Tendons and ligaments need collagen for their strength. And this mineral is absolutely essential for the formation of cartilage in the joints.

Silicon is found in plants in their fiber. Unfortunately, silicon levels of plants are a lot lower now than ever. This is because soils that the plants are grown in are deficient. Grains and vegetables as well as fruits need a soil rich in minerals in order to pass along the silicon to you.

A deficiency can also be related to hardening of the arteries, wrinkles and loss of elasticity in the skin, hair loss and thinning, and joint disorders.

You can see how this mineral is essential for the body to heal itself!

Zinc Deficiency Will Prolong Your Healing of Tennis Elbow

The synthesis of DNA needs zinc. This means that if the cells in your tendons, ligaments and cartilage are lacking zinc, your  cells will reproduce without it and become weak.

Some of the zinc deficiency symptoms are:

• Prolonged healing of skin and connective tissue
• Fatigue
• Predisposition to cancer
• Unhealthy changes in prostate gland size and structure
• Inability to taste foods
• Poor appetite
• Poor circulation
• Tendency to faint

Again, you can clearly see how lateral epicondylitis and zinc deficiency are related. The deficiency will prevent you from recovering, keep you fatigued and without an appetite.

When you don’t have an appetite, then it’s easy to develop many vitamin and mineral deficiencies simply because you don’t consume enough calories.

What Foods Will Increase My Zinc Levels?

Zinc is found in the following foods:

• fish
• legumes
• meats
• oysters
• poultry
• seafood
• whole grains
• brewer’s yeast
• egg yolks
• lamb chops
• lima beans
• liver
• mushrooms
• pecans
• pumpkin seeds
• sardines
• seeds
• soy lecithin, soybeans
• sunflower seeds

To heal tennis elbow from within, start with the basics and build strong connective tissue. You now have the knowledge to do so and improve tennis elbow dramatically.

And to make a difference in your lateral epicondylitis from the outside, take a look at the ebook, Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

Using both healing from the inside and healing from the outside, you can get results the fastest!

In simple terms, tennis elbow tendonitis means a repetitive action strained and caused tiny tears in the outer (lateral) tendons of your forearm arm which form and move your elbow.

These tiny tears can build up and cause a rather severe pain when the arm is moved in the same repetitive motion. If left untreated, it can get bad enough to ache from any movement at all. It can feel almost incapacitating.

As the name implies, this injury frequently occurs during racket sports like tennis or racquetball, especially those with a “backhand”. Non-athletes should not be fooled by the name.

It is just as likely to show up from any number of repetitive actions. Hammering, digging, raking, using vibrating tools, and all similar actions are known causes of tennis elbow.

Why do most people perform these movements with no problem, but you suffer from pain? Why are your tendons more vulnerable than others? The answer is tennis elbow predisposition and recognizing it is an important part of your cure.

Identifying the Cause Is Critical To Recovery

Physical therapy will help the pain, but identifying the source is vital to a permanent cure. Repetitive motion damage often occurs over an extended period of time, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact cause.

For example, a two month long pain was probably not caused, but only agitated, when you painted for the first time this weekend. You will have to examine other aspects of your life which make you vulnerable.

On the other hand, tennis elbow has been known to suddenly appear after an unusual repetitive action. In the same example, if you have never had tennis elbow pain but suddenly feel sore after a weekend of painting, then the painting probably caused the problem. Your arm should feel better soon, but you have identified a predisposition toward tennis elbow in the future.

When determining the cause of your pain, it is important to first examine your predisposition to the problem.

What is tennis elbow predisposition? It essentially means that certain circumstances unique to your body or your life are triggering tennis elbow more frequently than other people.

While every person is unique, there are certain similarities among those predisposed to tennis elbow. Predisposition can be broken into 3 categories: athletic, lifestyle, and anatomical. If you can determine which category you fall into, you will have better insight into your cure.

Athletic Predisposition

Not every case of tennis elbow is from sports, but its frequency is what earned it an athletic nickname. Of course, not every athlete gets tennis elbow. The difference between the ones that do and the ones that don’t is frequently their athletic predisposition.

The first thing you must look at is your current physical capability versus the motion you are trying to perform. Tennis elbow isn’t caused by lifting too much weight all at once; it is by over-straining your lateral tendon repeatedly.

This is why you should always let your current endurance level tell you when you’ve had too much. If you are not a super-athlete, you shouldn’t try to play like one.

Professional athletes have years of strength training to support their aggressive play. If you have not trained your arms to maintain this kind of athleticism, you are going to cause damage. Although you might feel a rush when you play a too-intense game, it is not worth the pain afterward. Instead, train your game up to that level.

Next, how’s your form? Every sport has a right way and a wrong way to do it. Using the correct form enhances athletic performance, but it also keeps you injury proof.

These days, many people begin playing sports and are self-taught or taught by a peer who also plays the game. It is great to get out and exercise, but if you’re planning to play long-term it is time you received professional lessons.

Finally, always make sure you use the right athletic equipment. The right equipment significantly reduces tendon strain.

For example, a loosely strung racquet vibrates 5X longer than one strung properly, each vibration tearing your tendon. When you use a racquet, club, or bat with a handle too small or too large for your hand, you constantly compensate in your grip and move your arm awkwardly to adjust, further tearing at your tendons.

The wrong equipment makes you vulnerable to tennis elbow. Only a professional or coach will be able to tell you if you are using the right equipment for you body. While you’re taking lessons on form, make sure you also ask for an equipment check.

Lifestyle Predisposition

In many ways, a lifestyle predisposition is very similar to athletic predisposition. Essentially, they are almost the same tennis elbow causes. It breaks down to capability and form.

Are you a couch potato or are you sedentary? When muscles are inactive, they begin to break down. They get smaller and weaker. A weaker muscle is going to tear more easily and take longer to heal.

If you are not active, you are setting yourself up for tennis elbow pain, especially if you suddenly take on an unusually intense activity. It is even truer since your inactivity probably means you are not trained to have good form.

Form is not only important in sports, it is important at home and at work.

For example, professional movers know to carry a box close to their body with their elbows safely bent. Novices tend to put their arms under a box and extend their elbows, tearing at their tendons the whole time.

For every motion you make, from sweeping to carrying grocery bags, there is a correct way and wrong way. Research the right form for your most repetitive activities and you will greatly cut down on your predisposition.

Anatomical Predisposition

Finally, there is an anatomical predisposition to tennis elbow to consider. If you have had previous problems with tendonitis, especially in your arms, you must always keep it in mind. There is always a heightened risk of reinjuring yourself.

Tendons and muscles are comprised of protein fibers. Your body needs certain fuel to build and repair healthy tendons.

You need dietary protein for the building blocks, natural calcium to repair the tissue which connects the tendon to the bone, and a good multi-vitamin to accelerate healing. If you aren’t getting these nutrients or if you have a medical condition which inhibits nutrient absorption, your body is at a higher risk for tendonitis.

This type of predisposition doesn’t mean you stop playing sports or you quit a repetitive motion job, it means you concentrate on doing the right thing for your body. Pay extra attention to always having the right form, fitness level, and equipment for anything you do.

Give your body plenty of the right fuel it needs to keep your tendons healthy. If you have a previous injury, take additional precaution using braces and stretching to prevent a future injury. Anatomical predisposition can be overcome with vigilance and care.

The Next Step

Now you understand tennis elbow predisposition. You should have a better understanding of what causes tennis elbow and how to correct the problem. However, identification is only half the journey.

Your next step is to heal, nourish, and strengthen your tendons to overcome your predisposition toward reinjuring your elbow.

This is where the e-book, Tennis Elbow Secrets, comes in handy. In this e-book you will learn the basics of RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation) therapy for acute cases.

You will also learn the 7 simple steps to a full recovery, including the most important exercise used to prevent a relapse. In the e-book you will also find additional resources for understanding tennis elbow and establishing a strategy to cure it.

Take the time to analyze your activities and your body. It will probably not be a quick task, but with concentration you should be able to identify the cause of your pain and your unique disposition to the injury. Once you know your vulnerabilities, you can alter your tennis elbow strategy to stop further damage and get cured faster.

You have been feeling pain in your arm. At first it may have just been an aching in your elbow. Now, it may be radiating down to your finger tips with every movement. At this point, your doctor may say you need surgery and you are wondering what that really means.

This Is a Degenerative Injury

Long before you felt your first pain, your elbow was deteriorating. Every time you used it, the damage got worse and worse. Once you started feeling the pain, it was probably hard to miss the increasing severity.

Epicondylitis is a degenerative injury. This means it will get worse unless it is treated. There was a time when you could have prevented the damage and never have required surgery.

At that time, you could have focused on strengthening your muscles and making your arm more agile. This would have kept your arm healthy throughout all of your movement. The damage would have healed for good.

Since that did not happen, your pain got worse because your damage got severe. If your doctor is recommending surgery, that is serious. It is always a good idea to get a second opinion and find a diagnosis you trust.

However, if the consensus is to have surgery you should do so right away before the degeneration becomes permanent.

Do Not Get Frustrated By the Slow Healing Process

The biggest complaint most lateral or medial epicondylitis patients who need surgery have is the loss of mobility. You never really know how much you use your arm until you have limited mobility.

Immediately after your surgery, you will have no mobility but that will gradually change. It is the gradual nature of the healing process that can frustrate you.

It is important that your frustration not lead to you taking on too much movement before you are ready. If you do this, you can undo the entire repair from the surgery. Because of the nature and location of your medial epicondyle, or elbow, there is restricted blood flow to the area.

The muscles are fed by smaller vessels because the main blood circulation is being directed to your lower arm and hand. Swelling from the injury limits the blood supply further. If you do too much too soon, you will have more swelling.

Your tendons have virtually no blood supply. The thick, interwoven protein fibers of collagen and elastin which make up your tendons are too dense for veins.

Instead, they are nourished by synovial fluid, which the body produces to keep the joint lubricated. Healing nutrients are in this fluid, but not at the same potency as would be in your blood.

All of this means that the healing nutrients are not as freely available in your tendons and surrounding muscles as they may be in other parts of your body. Therefore, healing is going to take longer in this area. A longer healing period means it will take you longer to feel the results.

To accelerate healing, after your medial epicondylitis surgery you will probably be encouraged to eat very nutritiously. Additionally, you should take a vitamin supplement that is full of nutrients like vitamin C and the vitamin B complex.

A good diet with added nutrients will make sure that the healing blood and fluid pumped into the area is as potent as possible.

Making a Full Recovery

During your recovery period, you will probably see your doctor frequently. Each week he or she will want to check your progress, to make sure you are healing appropriately. As you heal, you will be allowed increasing activity and mobility.

At this point, you will be facing a critical decision that can affect the rest of your life with regard to your elbow pain. If you do not change the circumstances that led to your surgery for medial epicondylitis you are doomed to repeat the injury. Now is the time for you to decide to finally cure your problem.

The root problem is that your elbow muscles and tendons are weak and rigid. This leaves them prone to overuse injuries from your activities. If permanently giving up your activity is not an answer, then you might want to try the e-book Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed is written for anyone suffering from the pain of tennis elbow, whether or not they have needed surgery. The program will teach you a series of stretches and strengthening movements that will keep your tissue healthy and agile to prevent injury.

It will also show you how to get started right away, by balancing downtime for rest and repair, with moderate activity to promote healing.

If your condition has not progressed so much that surgery is still an option and not a requirement, you need to start correcting the root problem right now. If you do need surgery for your elbow, do not give up hope. You can make a full recovery and ensure the injury will never happen again.

You are what you eat, have you heard that a lot? If you are suffering from tennis elbow, you may think that food does not have anything to do with your sore muscles and tendons. In fact, your diet can play the critical role in how well and how fast you heal.

What Not To Eat

This is the first topic because it may be the most important. If you put bad food in you, you are going to get bad results. Some bad foods you already know about, but some may greatly surprise you.

Stay away from all processed foods, especially those rich in chemicals, preservatives, and dyes. These foods cause multiple problems. First, the chemicals and other artificial ingredients are toxins to your bodies.

Even worse, these toxins are often stored in the same muscular tissue that is injured, making repairs even more difficult.

Second, they are difficult to digest. This means the nutrients that you do consume are not absorbed because your body must spend too much time on the bad foods. The same goes for foods that have a very high fat content, because fat is difficult to digest.

These processed foods are also very innutritious. Any nutrients that were in the food have been dyed, flavored, heated, and otherwise removed.

If you are suffering from a tennis elbow injury, your body needs all the nutrients it can get to heal your wound. If you are not getting enough of what your body needs to live, your body will not be able to devote enough energy to healing your wound.

Foods That Might Actually Cause Your Injury

The most surprising foods that you should not eat are those that may have attributed to your injury.

For example, scientific research has shown that food with a high acid content or which causes your body to produce acid can cause tendons to swell to the point of tearing.

Fried foods, liver, rich cheeses, and deli meat and other acid prone foods must be avoided to prevent tennis elbow injuries as well as other tendonitis.

You should also avoid sodium, or salt, in your diet. Salt has an unusual ability to cause great swelling throughout your body.

When you consume sodium, your body begins to pool liquid, or swell, even though you may not know it.

While you perform your normal activities, like playing tennis, your arm must deal with excess and unstable weight from this swelling.

You are not aware of the risk, and continue to use your arm as normal but you are actually causing damage from overuse.

If you have an injury to your muscles and tendons, there is already going to be swelling. Lymph fluid and other water is seeping out of your town elbow tissue. The swelling is causing pain and impacting your body’s ability to heal.

If you eat salt at this critical time, you are going to increase your swelling which can have bad consequences and possibly lasting damage.

What You Should Eat

Just as there are foods you must avoid with your tennis elbow, there are other foods you must make sure you get plenty of. Some of these foods are simply nutrient rich, giving your body an abundance of what it needs to heal itself and thrive.

Other foods have specific qualities to help relieve the pain, swelling, and other symptoms of your injury.

In general, fresh and raw foods are always rich in the vitamins, minerals, and other nourishment that you need. Vegetables and fruits when eaten raw will provide you with the maximum amount of nutrition.

Low fat proteins, such as chicken or fish, will help you build new tendon material, or collagen and elastin, without producing the negative acid.

There are specific foods that will help you with your specific condition.

For example, pineapple is high in vitamin C which builds collagen but it also has high bromelain content. Bromelain is a naturally occurring anti-inflammatory that will reduce the swelling from your tendonitis, relieving your pain.

Barley is also known for its natural anti-inflammatory attributes, as well as its ability to neutralize acids in your system.

Spinach is high in a form of iron that is easily absorbed by your body. High iron content makes your blood richer and better able to transport healing cells and hormones to your injured elbow.

If You Are Eating Right, You Are Ready For the Next Step

Diet is so critical to healing your tennis elbow, but diet will not heal you alone. You need to give your elbow rest. However, you also need to rehabilitate your arm to make yourself injury proof.

The e-book Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed can teach you how to achieve both of these goals. This program teaches you tried and true rest and recovery techniques. However, it will also introduce you to a new program of at-home rehabilitation exercises which gradually increase your strength and flexibility.

As your strength increases and you continue to eat right, you will need less and less recovery time until one day you find you are no longer plagued with the pain you once suffered.

Natural Medicines

While it is a good idea to not pollute your system or diminish your body’s healing capacity with oral and prescription pain relievers, there are some fantastic natural alternatives.

The best natural tennis elbow remedies are those that can be used topically. These are applied directly to the skin around your elbow, providing quick relief without the dangers of pills.

Oil of wintergreen, or methyl salicylate, is a fantastic topical remedy for your tendonitis. When absorbed by your skin, wintergreen is converted to salicylic acid which is also known as aspirin.

As you know, aspirin is a great pain reliever and anti-inflammatory, but it also thins your blood.

Thinned blood is better able to reach all the areas of your elbow where swelling may have limited the blood supply.

Traditionally, aspirin will agitate the stomach and interfere with the digestion of nutrients, but when absorbed through the skin it skips the digestion process and goes straight into the bloodstream.

Menthol, derived from peppermint, is also a great anti-inflammatory to reduce swelling with no harmful side effects. However, it’s pain relieving affects are also important.

When menthol touches your skin, it triggers your nerves to feel a cooling sensation. This cooling sense is very powerful. The nerves are consumed with this sensation and are not able to transmit the normal pain indicators from before.

Short and Long Stretch Compression Bandages

Compression is a very effective tennis elbow remedy. Compression is the method of applying pressure to the injury to eliminate swelling and increase blood flow. Compression is typically achieved using wrap bandages or braces.

There are two different types of compression bandages and it is important that you understand both so you can use the right kind at the right time.

Long stretch bandages have a great stretching ability. When you feel them, they are typically stiff and less flexible. They are woven tightly and in a way that does not draw back to its original shape quickly. When they are wrapped around your arm, they do not immediately contract. They continue to contract throughout the day as you move.

This gives the bandages very high compression ability, applying a lot of pressure as long as you wear it. This extreme pressure means that they cannot be worn for long periods of time, especially overnight, or they could eventually cut off circulation. However, long stretch bandages are fantastic at relieving extreme or acute swelling and pain.

On the other hand, short stretch bandages can be worn all day and all night if needed. They contract immediately after application. This means the tightness after application will remain the tightness throughout the rest of the day.

This will not be enough compression for extreme swelling, but should be enough to provide tennis elbow pain relief throughout normal activities and for lingering swelling.

Finding Lasting Relief

With so many different therapy remedies for tennis elbow out there, it can be difficult to determine which will give you the best results. The wrong choices can end up doing more damage than good. If you are not using techniques designed to cure your tennis elbow, then you are only treating the pain and the injury will recur.

The fact is that most techniques for tennis elbow pain relief were not created by someone who ever suffered from tennis elbow. While they have probably been officially trained, they are still confined to the theories of traditional medicine and this is the fundamental reason why so many techniques fail.

The main problem with traditional medicine is that is will only try to stop your pain. If necessary, your doctor may decide to operate on your elbow.

However, this is only to correct immediate damage. You may feel tennis elbow relief, but if you do not correct the issues that caused the problem in the first place you are going to be injured again.

The question is how do you stay injury free for good? You can find the answer in the e-book Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed. There is a lot of valuable information you can learn in this book to help you stay injury free.

Of this information, a very important lesson you will learn is the R.I.C.E. (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) method of pain relief and healing. This will help you better understand the techniques you have learned in this article.

Secondly, and most important of all the information in the book, you will learn a series of exercises and stretches to keep your muscles and tendons strong and flexible. It is difficult to injure an arm that is strong and agile. These exercises, in combination with proper healing techniques, will be your permanent solution.

You do not need to suffer any longer. Relieve your pain using these healthy techniques you have learned. However, do not let your pain stop you from doing what it takes to cure problem. The sooner you start on the path to making your arm stronger, the sooner you will begin to feel better.

Your joints, especially your elbows, have to bear the largest burden throughout the day. In fact, scientists believe that your elbow’s muscles and tendons are one of the most used in your body. With so much use, it is no wonder that tennis elbow, or tendonitis, is the most prevalent injury humans sustain.

Now that you have this tendonitis, it is time to start getting better. The longer the problem goes without treatment and healing, the worse it will get. One of the most important steps to healing from your tendonitis is to give your body the nourishment it needs to do the necessary growth and repairs quickly and correctly.

The Different Components of Your Elbow

It is important that you understand the structure of the joint if you are going to nourish your tendonitis in elbow. Your injury affects every part of your elbow and every part must heal. However, they each need different nourishment and therapeutic efforts to fully heal and become injury proof.

Obviously, bone is an essential part of your joint. Your skeletal structure is what supports all of your movement. Of course, your injury is not in your bone, but your bone still plays an important role in curing tendonitis of the elbow.

Remember everything you ever heard about the importance of lifting with good posture or you will hurt your back? Your other joints are no different. You must always be sure that you use the correct posture in all of your activities, from lifting to sports. If your bones are in alignment, it will put less strain on your muscles and tendons.

Lying on top of your bone and directing movement are your muscles. It is moving your arm muscles that typically increases your elbow tendonitis symptoms. They are composed of mainly from strands of protein.

Muscles are defined as the contracting tissue that gives you the ability to move and produce force. In plain language, this means you cannot move, lift, or perform any other activity without your muscles. All day long your use your arm and forearm muscles, but they can still easily be compromised if not cared for properly.

Muscles, especially the type in your arms, are very unique to most other parts of your body. The strength and size of a muscle is entirely determined by you. If you nourish your muscle, it will be stronger and more fortified and if you abuse your muscle, you are going to be weak and injury prone.

Attaching the muscle to the bone and running the length of the muscle, essentially making all supported movement possible, are your tendons. As you may have guessed, this is the primary body part affected when you suffer from tendonitis in the elbow.

Tendons are like nature’s rubber bands, holding muscles in place but still allowing your body to bend, stretch, contract, and remain flexible. These “bands” are composed of the proteins called collagen and elastin.

Collagen, next to bone, is one of the strongest substances in your body. While the exact structure varies throughout your body, in your elbow collagen is very dense.

However, it maintains a fibrous structure that allows you to move. Using the rubber band explanation, collagen is the material that holds the rubber band together.

Elastin is like the elastic in the rubber band that allows it to stretch great distances and then retract to its original shape. Elastin is also made from protein, but lighter protein molecules that are arranged in a coil like structure. As you may guess, it is this coil structure that gives elastin its flexibility and strength.

Now you know how your elbow is constructed. When you are healing from tennis elbow tendonitis, it is always important that keep this in mind. When you are injured, you will know now exactly what nutrients your body needs to rebuild.

Giving Your Elbow the Nourishment It Needs To Rebuild

During that lesson on elbow structure, what word did you read over and over again? If you answered protein, you are right. Protein is responsible for more than 45% of your dry body mass. It is one of the most essential elements in your body. Without enough protein, you simply could not live.

Your body creates the specific proteins and protein based amino-acids that comprise your muscles and tendons. However, you still have to provide the ingredients for these proteins. Put simply, this means you have to consume what your body needs.

Because it takes protein to build protein, the first ingredient is to eat more protein. Since most of your body is comprised of protein and needs it to thrive, you have to eat more protein than normal if you are healing from tendonitis tennis elbow.

Unfortunately, not all protein was created equal and consuming the wrong kind of protein can do more harm than good. Plant based proteins, like those made from soy beans, are difficult for your body to digest. When your body has trouble digesting a food, more of the nutrients are removed as waste instead of absorbed.

Animal protein is the most superior form of protein, supplying the most nutrients your body needs to rebuild. In fact, many patients recovering from elbow tendonitis surgery are given an animal protein rich diet for recovery. However, many animal based proteins can also be bad for you because of their high fat content.

Beef, pork, lamb, and protein from milk are loaded with fat. This fat is easy for your body to absorb, almost instantly increasing your body fat and weight and decreasing your health and strength. Always remember, anything that compromises your body will make your elbow tendonitis treatment less effective.

Although some animal based proteins are not recommended for healing, some are quite excellent. Lean proteins, such as chicken and fish, should be an important part of your diet while you are healing. These will give you the highest concentration of proteins without the fat to degrade you.

In addition to eating plenty of protein, make sure you drink plenty of water. Your body, especially your tendons and muscles, is made from mostly water. Your body does not produce water. This means all of the water in your body comes from what you consume. While you can get water from your food, it is a safe bet to drink at least 80 ounces of water every day.

You should also take a regular vitamin and mineral supplement each day. Your body uses vitamins and minerals in all of its processes. Different supplements provide different nourishment.

For example, vitamin C helps your body build collagen but vitamin B helps your body absorb protein. A good daily supplement with multiple vitamins and minerals should be all you need to adequately nourish your healing elbow.

Become Injury Proof

Now that you have learned how to promote healing from your injury, you need to learn how to remain injury free. If you do not make an effort to correct your problems that lead to your elbow tendonitis symptoms you are bound to have a repeated injury. The next time, the injury could be far worse and more debilitating.

Tendonitis of elbow tissue has occurred because the muscles were used beyond their strength and the tendons were stretched beyond their ability.

This is good news. As you read earlier about muscles, you are entirely in charge of how strong and big your muscle is. Likewise, it is up to you to make sure that your tendons remain flexible and able to stretch adequately without damage.

You need to perform physical strength and flexibility training to achieve the results you need to stay injury free. Fortunately for you, there is a program available that will teach you everything you know to achieve this goal.

The e-book Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed was developed by Geoff Hunt to give you this instruction. Hunt’s program will teach you a series of elbow tendonitis exercises that build muscle, but keep the tendons as flexible as possible. Many tennis elbow sufferers who used this program were often amazed at how quickly their pain went away and stayed away.

No matter how you nourish your injured elbow, it will remain at risk unless you make a sincere effort to remain injury free. It is not difficult to exercise, stretch, and flex your muscles but you will have to be diligent about sticking to the program. If you do, your diligence will be well rewarded because you will remain pain free for the rest of your life.

Fortunately, this is not true when it comes to treating your tennis elbow or tendonitis. In this case, you can actually achieve far better results if you decide to be your own therapist.

Skip the Expensive Therapy, Do It Yourself

Many medical “experts” have one line of defense they stick to when treating tennis elbow, physical therapy. Every year, physical therapists and the related physical therapy industry generate millions of dollars in profits by treating tennis elbow.

However, all of the money you spend on physical therapy is not needed and is likely not to cure your problem.

For many injuries, especially acute problems like those from an accident, traditional therapy is an excellent way to rehabilitate and make a full recovery. The difference is that the exercises for tennis elbow are solely aimed at relieving your pain.

They do not focus on strengthening and improving the elbow beyond what is required to stop the pain and resume activity. In fact, often therapy sessions stop as soon as the pain stops leaving you open to future injury because you have not learned how to sustain a healthy arm.

Another problem with going to physical therapy sessions is that the equipment you are using is expensive. Most people only have access to that type of equipment at the therapy office.

This equipment is very effective at exercising the arm at the right angle, with the right weight, and with the right movement that will strengthen it and increase its flexibility.

The drawback comes, once again, when the pain stops. At this point you will typically stop your therapy sessions and no longer have access to these machines. You will not have learned how to continue caring for your arm at home without the machines. This will leave you vulnerable to injury again.

Finally, therapy is expensive. Many insurance plans do not cover it and those that do still leave you with hefty co-pays. Most therapy will require several visits a week for many months. These bills can rack up, especially since you can achieve the same results at home.

The Cheaper, Less Complex Equipment Will Help You The Most

If you search long enough, you are going to find a whole host of gadgets that can be used to treat. They are more than likely expensive and may even require multiple purchases before you get the full affect.

The fact of the matter is that you do not need to spend a lot of money on fancy gadgets in order to heal your tennis elbow. The simpler and inexpensive tools work best.

Most equipment for tendonitis has one focus. It is used in conjunction with tennis elbow exercises. Really expensive equipment strives to keep you in the absolute best position or posture during your exercise.

If you think about it though, what are you really learning using this equipment? You are not learning how to do the task correctly without help. You will remain at risk for injury whenever you do not use the equipment.

Essentially, you will either have to use the equipment for the rest of your life or learn how to do it right without the gadgets.

Instead of buying expensive gadgets, you can probably find everything you need at your local store. A good wrap bandage, also known as an Ace bandage, will give you compression to reduce swelling and possibly relieve pain.

However, it will not restrict your movement so much as to keep your arm in a certain position. You will have to learn the proper form.

A simple set of hand or free weights will also be very effective and very inexpensive. These will enable you to perform a wide range of tennis elbow exercise movements and techniques.

These free weights are a fantastic way to gradually build up strength in your arm. Make sure you do not take on too much load, start with the smaller weights first.

These weights are also quite effective during flexibility exercises. When you have rested your elbow, you will be able to increasingly stretch your tendons to prevent future tendonitis.

Learn the Right Moves From the Right Person

As you read earlier, you do not need to spend a lot of money seeing a physical therapist to relieve your tennis elbow pain. Any exercise for tennis elbow will be just as effective done at home. However, you will still need instruction on which exercises are best and how to perform them properly.

The author of Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed, Geoff Hunt, will provide you with all of the instruction you need to start healing your tendonitis. Hunt, a former elbow tendonitis sufferer, designed his program based on all of the knowledge he gained on his quest to heal himself.

He was tired of simply treating his recurring injury only to have it happen again. He realized that the focus of exercise for tennis elbow should be on strengthening the elbow and making it more agile to prevent future injury.

In his book, Hunt shares the series of exercises which cured his own condition. If you follow this program correctly, you should also be able to permanently cure and prevent your tennis elbow. Hunt will show you how to use common household items to heal and strengthen your arm.

Hunt will also teach you the R.I.C.E. method of healing which includes using basic bandage wraps to support and compress the arm during exercise and while resting.

Do not get fooled into spending a lot of money on physical therapy or miracle gadgets to cure your elbow tendonitis. The exercises you need to do are not complicated and do not require a big investment to see results. With good direction and advice, you should be able to heal yourself in