Guitar and tennis elbow?

addedc

addedc

Experienced
I bought a Charvel San Dimas about a month ago and having been playing the hell out of it. It has a flatter neck radius than any guitar I own and I find I am liking that.

I have also noticed a gradually increasing swelling on the elbow of my left fretting hand over the last 30 days. I thought that might be bone cancer. Upon checking, it's just tennis elbow.

Now that I am paying attention to it, I notice that I seem to feel the injury more with this Charvel than other guitars. Could that be because of the flatter radius? If anyone has similar experience I would like to know especially if guitar could be causing it.
 
Logic would indicate that if the radius differs from your other gee-tars, then yeah, it's probably a contributing factor.
The only way to know is to stop using it and go back to another - but with the same playing frequency.
If it does NOT go away, then "playing the hell out of it" is the cause, and NOT the neck radius :)
My $0.02
 
Thanks for the reply. If it's not this one, it's my Strat, Tele or PRS. I maybe did play this one just a little bit more and I am noticably a little faster on it. I am not very savvy on medical issues. Does playing guitar aggravate tennis elbow? If so, playing faster must make it that much more.
 
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addedc said:
Thanks for the reply. If it's not this one, it's my Strat, Tele or PRS. I maybe did play this one just a little bit more and I am noticably a little faster on it. I am not very savvy on medical issues. Does playing guitar aggravate tennis elbow? If so, playing faster must make it that much more.
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I'm not a doctor, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but yeah.. any repetitive stress on the elbow can cause "tennis elbow".. AFAIK.
Sounds like overplaying MIGHT be causing yours. If you have it, use one of those elbow straps (it helps) but the only REAL cure is to back of the playing for a bit and let it heal.
 
The guitar and your enthusiasm for it may have brought the problem to the surface, but the underlying cause is inefficient technique, aka unnecessary tension in the left hand. One factor promoting unnecessary tension is focusing on a goal (I wanna shred!) and ignoring the process. Take a look at Ben Monder's left hand on YouTube.
 
Tigerfish said:
The guitar and your enthusiasm for it may have brought the problem to the surface, but the underlying cause is inefficient technique, aka unnecessary tension in the left hand. One factor promoting unnecessary tension is focusing on a goal (I wanna shred!) and ignoring the process. Take a look at Ben Monder's left hand on YouTube.
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I would agree that it could possibly be a technique issue - or possibly that you're not warming up enough.
 
Thanks for the replies. I think the guitar and maybe it’s flatter neck radius has something to do with it, too. I also don’t stretch and warm up as much as I should.
 
I've suffered this in the past, came on very suddenly too. I think it was a combination of a fairly intensive period of practise (was trying to get parts down for a show) and...dare i say it...getting just that little bit older... *sigh

Take care, this stuff can be a real bugger to overcome, and easily exacerbated.

I'm no doc either, however..i would recommend giving your arm a bit of a rest if possible. No need to totally immobilise it, but go easy.

Forum member cragginshred made a video a while back on various stretching exercises etc to deal with this stuff, I found it absolute gold and helped my own recovery. I still use many of the stretches on a daily basis.

Worth checking out, hope all goes well for you:

cragginshred said:
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I got a San Dimas a year or so back and weirdly I have to say it taxes my wrist/forearm a bit more than all my other guitars. I'm a 'thumb wrap over' style player - but all my other guitars range from Ibanez Wizard thru to LP 59 baseball bat and they don't seem to give the same issue.

I think the San Dimas is a 10-16 compound radius but I also have my old late 80's early 90's pointy Charvel 475 with the same radius and it feels a bit more comfortable to me. I got the San Dimas because it's less embarrassing looking than a beat up bright red pointy thing at my age when I want to use a Floyd Rose guitar on stage.

My San Dimas hasn't injured me and it doesn't annoy me while playing but I do 'feel it' afterwards. I really don't know why.
 
Maybe a different guitar/strap height and angle is the cause?

These guys might know.

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I've had the issue before. I used this rubber bar thing I found online, Theraband. Look up some youtube videos on it. Got rid of my tendonitis when nothing else seemed to work.
 
I had a similar problem a few years ago. You can find some videos that'll teach you some good stretching exercises. ACE makes a tennis elbow strap that helped me play a couple of shows without pain.
 
Worse comes to worse, a cortisone shot does wonders... cant do a lot of them. I had one in each elbow over the years and it's a miracle. Oh, it hurts like hell too.
 
[QUOTE="Forum member cragginshred made a video a while back on various stretching exercises etc to deal with this stuff, I found it absolute gold and helped my own recovery. I still use many of the stretches on a daily basis.

Worth checking out, hope all goes well for you:[/QUOTE]

Thanks everyone and thanks very much for posting that, Carl. I appreciate your taking the time to make that very helpful video, CraigInShed.
It's interesting that someone had a similar experience with that exact guitar.
 
Just an update if anyone else is suffering from tendonitis. The Cragginshred video is a great help. I also tried several different things including CBD. For me, this combination of supplements over the last ten days has made about a 90% improvement, even with playing a few gigs and long rehearsal: MSM, Vitamin D3 and K2.
 
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