Stretches for Tennis Elbow

Ahhh.... Stretching muscles back to full health.  Along with your massage, stretches for tennis elbow can make real improvements in your condition. I’m going to get a little sciency, but stick with me; the science is fun.  If you don’t care for the science, just skip down to the pictures of the stretches.

When you stretch, you are lengthening the muscles back to their normal length.  The knots and tension in your muscles actually shorten your muscles default length, and thus place strain on it.
Take a look at this picture: 

The muscle’s sarcomeres (individual cells, represented by the vertical black lines) are lengthened, or stretched, on both sides of the tense knot. You want to press out the knot through massage and then stretch the muscles so that the muscle gets a uniform stretch along its entire length, and thus the sarcomeres will relax into their normal uniform spacing along the muscle. 

Your muscle has an un-uniform stretch right now on the parts of the muscle to either side of the knot.  Giving the muscle a complete, uniform stretch is what you want to do.  It will also help you to regain any range of motion you may have lost because of your muscle’s tightening up.  These stretches for tennis elbow will involve your forearm muscles and the muscles in your upper arm.

Here are some simple stretches to do for your wrist and elbow to help the elongate and relax the muscles: 

Once you have your muscles stretched and are getting them relaxed, try some other home cures for tennis elbow.  Or, you can look at mainstream tennis elbow treatments and how they can bring down the pain in your elbow.