How to prevent tennis elbow

Tennis elbow is one of the injuries that is most often suffered by regular tennis players. If you have a home court on your property or you are a member of a tennis club and you have found yourself developing the symptoms of tennis elbow it can be very distressing. Not only is the condition uncomfortable, but you might be worried that you won’t be able to play tennis in the future without suffering pain.

So, what can you do to prevent tennis elbow? The truth is that it can be difficult to prevent it entirely however there are a number of steps you can take to help you make a recovery or to stop the symptoms from getting worse.

Stop any regular activity that causes you pain

Typically tennis elbow is caused by repetitive strain on the tendons of the elbow. So if you are regularly doing some that strains your arm you should avoid this is in future. However, if you are finding that it is tennis that is causing you the problems then you need to take specific action to ensure it doesn’t get any worse as you play.

Take lessons

Tennis is a sport of repetitive movements so it is often the case that the cause of tennis elbow is performing these movements incorrectly. It can be a good idea to get some coaching to improve your technique – this can stop the problem from getting worse, and may even resolve the issue altogether.

Warm up properly

Another way to help you prevent tennis elbow is to ensure that you warm up correctly before you start playing. Gently stretch out your arms before you play to avoid putting extra strain on cold tendons. This is good practice in avoiding injury anyway, but it can also have a profound effect on your tennis elbow.

Home tennis court: an alternative to hard court

If you are thinking of having a brand new home tennis court installed at your property, now could be the perfect time. It has never been easier and more affordable to have a beautiful tennis court created in your garden or on private land, and a tennis court can add value to your home as well as giving a lovely focal point to the property.

The vast majority of home tennis courts built in the UK are standard hard courts – and this has given rise to a myth that hard court is the only option. Of course in the UK we tend to associate tennis closely with grass courts due to the famous Wimbledon Championships, but it is generally considered that grass courts are too expensive and complicated to maintain to be a good option for a private court.

In general this is true but if it is your dream to own and play on a grass court in your home, don’t despair. It is actually possible to have something very familiar to a real grass court created for your garden. A synthetic grass court is a far cheaper option to have installed, and it actually comes with a huge range of benefits over a real grass court.

Firstly, unlike real grass, which gets saturated very quickly in wet weather and becomes impossible to play on, synthetic grass drains very quickly. This means that it is an all-weather surface that you can even play on in light rain. Additionally, artificial grass requires far less in the way of maintenance than real grass – it does not need regular cutting or watering, and is only around the same amount of work as a hard court.

It provides a surface that has extremely similar playing characteristics to real grass, so this can be a fantastic choice for you if you are looking to emulate Wimbledon this year.

Getting your tennis court ready for summer

With the summer just around the corner you can start to plan what you are going to be doing with your warm days and long evenings. If you have a private tennis court you will want to get the most out of it and enjoy a few games. But winter can be very hard on the court, and if you have gone through several of the cold months without stepping anywhere near it, you might well find that it is in need of serious maintenance. Here are three things you can do to get your court in excellent playing condition for the warmer weather.

Pressure wash the court

Tennis courts require regular maintenance to stay in the best possible shape and they can be a little neglected over the winter when no-one is using them. The problem is that this lack of maintenance allows for small problems to become more serious. So if it has been a while since you last cleaned your court it can be worth investing in power washing so remove organic matter such as moss, which can build up. This will ensure that the surface is space to play on and has no slippery patches.

Consider repainting

If you haven’t had your court colour sprayed for a while it might be worth considering. No, the visual appearance of the paint will not make a difference to the playability of the court, but a freshly painted, beautiful tennis court can look more inviting than one that looks like it has seen better days. On average it takes between 5 and 6 years for coatings to fade, so ask yourself whether this summer is the right time to repaint.

Invest in a new net

Additionally if you have had to your net for a number of years and it has become worn with time, you might find that now is a good time to replace it. If you having your court repainting it makes sense to improve the whole aesthetic at the same time.