Diet & Fitness 

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Treat your tennis elbow

Tennis elbow, an over-use injury, is the most common injury to this joint and can occur in any sport in which the elbow extends and flexes while the hand is gripping, e.g. badminton, baseball and bowling. Injury occurs because the forearms are not strong enough to take the strain.

The first thing you need to do is rest from playing tennis. When the pain has gone, you need to work on strengthening your forearms with supported wrist curls:

1. Keeping your elbows supported, hold a comfortable sized weight in your hand - about 1 to 2.5kg.
2. Raise and lower the wrist. Do as many repetitions as you feel you can with the palm facing up.
3. Repeat with the palm facing down. Do not work through any pain.

When returning to tennis, use tennis elbow supports, which will act like an outer skeleton and take the load off the soreness.

Why not chat to other iVillagers about exercise on the Love Your Body message board. Take a look at some of the LIVE discussions happening now on the board:

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