Tennis Elbow and Golfer’s Elbow: What Causes Elbow Pain and What Helps

Despite the names, you don’t need to play tennis or golf to get tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow. These are two of the most common causes of elbow pain, and they show up in gym-goers, tradespeople, desk workers, and anyone whose hands and forearms do a lot of repetitive work. The pain can be surprisingly stubborn — but it’s very treatable once you understand what’s driving it.

Here’s the rundown.

What Are They?

Both conditions involve irritation of the tendons that attach your forearm muscles to the elbow — the difference is simply where.

Tennis elbow affects the tendons on the outer side of the elbow. These tendons control the muscles that extend your wrist and fingers, so it often flares with gripping, lifting, or wrist movements.

Golfer’s elbow affects the tendons on the inner side of the elbow. These control the muscles that flex your wrist and fingers, and it tends to flare with gripping and pulling.

Both are essentially overload issues — the tendon has been asked to do more than it can currently handle, and has become irritated as a result.

Why They Happen

The common thread is repetitive or excessive load through the forearm muscles and their tendons. Contributors include:

Repetitive gripping or wrist movements. Whether from tools, keyboards, lifting weights or racquet sports, repeated load is the main driver.

A sudden increase in activity. Taking up a new task, sport or training style faster than the tendon can adapt to is a frequent trigger.

Technique and grip. How you grip, lift or perform certain movements can concentrate load on these tendons.

Contributing factors up the chain. Sometimes the shoulder, neck or the way the whole arm is moving plays a role in how much strain reaches the elbow.

Why It Can Be So Stubborn

Tendon-related pain like this often lingers because tendons are slow to adapt and because people tend to keep using the arm through the pain — it’s hard to rest your forearm when you need your hands for everything. This is exactly why an approach that addresses the load, rather than just the sore spot, matters.

What Actually Helps

Identifying the load. Because these are overload problems, working out what’s driving the strain — the specific movements, grip, activity levels, or contributing factors further up the arm — is central to settling it and preventing recurrence.

Hands-on treatment. Depending on the assessment, this might include soft tissue work to the forearm, joint mobilisation, dry needling and other techniques to reduce irritation and improve how the area is moving.

Load management and strengthening. Modifying the aggravating activities while the tendon settles, and progressively building the forearm’s capacity, is usually key to a lasting result. Tendons generally respond well to the right kind of load — the trick is getting the balance right.

Looking at the whole arm. Since the shoulder, neck and wrist can all influence elbow load, addressing any contributors up or down the chain is often part of the picture.

When to Get It Checked

It’s worth having elbow pain assessed if it’s persisting beyond a couple of weeks, interfering with work or training, not improving with rest, or getting worse. Getting on top of it earlier generally makes for a smoother recovery than pushing through for months.

The Bottom Line

Tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow are common, treatable causes of elbow pain — both essentially tendon overload issues, just on different sides of the elbow. Because they tend to linger when only the symptom is treated, addressing what’s actually loading the tendon is what makes the difference. If you’ve got nagging elbow pain that isn’t settling, it’s worth getting it properly assessed rather than working around it indefinitely.

This article is general information and not a substitute for individual medical advice.