Ep6: How to Cure Tendonitis

Marc: 00:00:00

Today, we're going to talk about tendinitis.

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It's a nasty little thing that some of

us can get through overuse syndromes,

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injuries, weight training, tennis,

golf, you name it, it can happen.

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And basically what that is, tendinitis,

is an inflammation of the tendon.

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Some of the more common areas are

in the shoulders, the knee area,

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and of course, around your elbows,

whether it be on the outside.

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or the inside.

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Now for me personally, I've had two

major flare ups of tendonitis in my

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left arm and twice in my shoulder.

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Once from snowboarding, once

from just generally working out.

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And in the flare ups of my

arm, at first it was annoying.

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And then it got to the point where I

wasn't even able to work out anymore.

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I couldn't do dumbbell curls.

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I couldn't do pull ups,

anything bicep related.

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Was simply too painful to do.

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Now, I don't know if a lot of you

have that or you suffer from that,

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but let me tell you, it's annoying.

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However, I have figured

out a way, or at least.

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A way to get around a lot of the pain

while curing tendonitis at the same time.

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It doesn't involve drugs, doesn't

involve alcohol, or crazy stunts,

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or never working out again.

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And I'm going to go over the six things

that you can do if you have tendonitis.

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And I'm not going to make any

guarantees here, but considering that

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I've had it at least four times, to

the point where I couldn't even lift

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a weight, And I am back on track.

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As of, as of right now, doing this

podcast, I'm tendinitis free and I'm

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beating a lot of my personal bests.

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So trust me, it's very depressing

when you get tendinitis.

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Number one.

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Cease and desist.

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Stop what you're doing.

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Now, if you know what you did that

started to cause that, if you can

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think back, Wow, Monday, geez,

I think I have some tendinitis.

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What did I do the last couple of days?

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Was it triceps?

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Was it maybe some type of a leg exercise?

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Did you do something new

for your shoulder routine?

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Are you always doing the same thing?

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So by cease and desist, I simply

mean, whatever exercise is

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aggravating your tendinitis,

that's the one you want to stop.

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Now not stop permanently, but

stop aggravating your tendinitis.

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And my own personal example, I believe

it was from doing French presses, or

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they call them skull crushers, or barbell

presses to the, to the forehead, and

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basically that's a tricep exercise.

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That is what triggered my tendinitis.

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Now I can still do any other

type of tricep exercise or

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bicep or whatever I want to do.

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I just have ceased and desisted to

do that particular exercise because

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that is what I believe aggravated it.

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Now, sometimes you're not going

to know what aggravated it.

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Maybe it's just.

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A tendon flare up, but if you do

know or you have an idea, that's

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when you want to stop doing

whatever hurts it or aggravates it.

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Now, if you're not sure what it was,

but you start doing your workouts

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and it's flaring up every time

after you're done, then that's when

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you can start to narrow it down.

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Then it might be a particular set of

exercises, particular movement, an angle,

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whatever it is that really aggravates it.

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Stop doing that because tendonitis is

what we would consider to be bad pain.

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That's not the kind of pain

you want to work through.

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It's not a lactic acid burning pain.

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This is a tendon flare up that if

you keep going, it's going to be,

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number one, very painful, but number

two, very hard to beat any of your

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personal best because you're going to

be working with a continual injury.

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So cease and desist.

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Number two.

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You can ice the area.

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Ice on tendonitis feels really nice.

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Now you can get some of the

soft ice packs, and you can

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lay it over the affected area.

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I would not ice more

than 10 to 15 minutes.

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Definitely not, I would never go above 20.

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You don't want to ice for a

really long period of time.

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You want to do it for frequent,

but short periods 5 to 10 minutes.

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is that sweet spot icing on there

sort of stops the inflammation.

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Usually for tendonitis, you're

not going to see any swelling, but

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it is inflammation of the tendon

underneath that muscle area.

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So ice, it feels really good,

especially if you've just done a

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workout and you've had a flare up.

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Ice can be a life, life saver.

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Number three, heat creams.

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Me personally, I like AST BioFreeze.

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However, I've heard Tiger Balm works.

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Now you can use those, not at the

same time that you would use ice.

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Ice is for a, an immediate

relief of that pain.

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Maybe you want to use a heat

cream before you work out.

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Maybe you want to use it during

some time during the day.

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Just if it's a little sore or

a little bit tender, you can

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use one of these heat creams.

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Now, what I've seen people do is

they use them before they work out.

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I personally don't.

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What I notice right away is that when

I'm warm, not, not a warmup, but when

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I'm, when I've warmed up the muscle

area, I don't, I don't feel it at all.

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When it starts getting cold again

is when it starts getting stiff.

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So a heat cream can be kind

of nice to warm up the area.

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That's affected.

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And like I said, I wouldn't necessarily

use it in combination with ice, but

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it's certainly something you can

carry around in your gym bag and

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use before your workout or just at

various times during the day if you

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get one of those little flareups.

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And of course, you're not carrying

around an ice pack with you.

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Number four, support by that.

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By that I mean you can get all

kinds of wrist braces, you can get.

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Uh, things for your elbow braces,

there's knee braces, there's shoulder

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things, there's neoprene, they're

not too expensive, you don't have to

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spend a ton of money on them, and what

that will do is immobilize the area,

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especially in an elbow area, any type

of twisting motion, that's usually what

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really gets me, if I'm doing any type

of a twisting, and so having a Nice

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neoprene, sort of a wrist strap that I

can put around that area to keep my arm

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a little more immobile or from twisting.

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That's really going to help as

far as not aggravating it anymore

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and letting the area recover.

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Now you don't have to

wear that all the time.

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What I tend to do is if I'm working

on the computer, or if I'm doing some

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stationary things, I'm not moving

around, I'm obviously not wor I don't

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wear it when I'm working out, but It

just helps to stabilize the area, and

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so I'll wear it as frequently as I can

if I'm driving, things like that, just

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to keep the area from not twisting and

moving around so that tendon can heal.

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Number five.

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Now I want to put a

little disclaimer on this.

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This doesn't mean that you

have to go see a chiropractor.

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I know that some of you might

be a little leery about that.

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I'm only mentioning a chiropractor because

this is where I got these last two things.

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These are devices...

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That I don't have at my house.

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I don't have the expertise

to use at my house.

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I didn't purchase one of these.

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Now you could have a

regular doctor do this.

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You could have a physical

therapist do this.

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You could have a chiropractor do this.

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If you have a friend that's qualified.

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Whatever.

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Point being.

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Number five, ultrasound.

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It's basically a little device,

they rub some, they rub some gel

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or some cream on your elbow, and

they use this little device, it

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sends ultrasound into the muscle.

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Now if it's a small area, like it was

in my elbow, I swear I could almost feel

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it, sort of vibrating against the bone.

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What's that, what that might do, At least

in theory, is sort of break up some of

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the spurs, help with the inflammation,

and heal it from the inside out.

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So, ultrasound.

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And that's just a little device

that they rub on that area.

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Usually with the ultrasound

is followed up by number 6.

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And it is a very short duration,

but deep tissue massage.

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Okay, so we've done the ultrasound for

about 10 minutes on the affected area.

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Then...

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What you're gonna do, you wipe off that

gel, and then you get a nice, deep tissue

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massage right on that affected tendon.

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That means that the person who's

qualified to do that will be

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pushing and rubbing on that area

to break up any of the scar tissue,

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whatever else is going on in there.

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Now, that can be a little

painful, let me tell ya.

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It's not a joy to have somebody

find, Oh, is this a tendon?

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Is this where it hurts?

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And then just dig their

thumb into that area.

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But I've never had such

relief at the same time.

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After they were done, it was almost

like, wow, it just disappeared.

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Now what you can do, and this is really

not a number seven, this goes back to

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number three, but after you're done

with the deep tissue massage, you can

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put on a little bit of that heat cream,

whether it be tiger bomb, AST, bio

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freeze, whatever else you want to use.

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And that sort of keeps that heat.

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That nice warm feeling on that area going

for another maybe five to ten minutes.

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And so it sort of finishes

off that deep tissue massage

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and makes it feel really good.

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Now when you use these six things

in combination, you will be

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able to cure your tendinitis.

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And even if you aren't able to

100 percent cure it, it's a whole

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lot better than simply cease

and desist and taking pain meds.

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All that is gonna do is, A, you're

not gonna be able to work out.

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Your favorite exercises or those

particular body parts as much, and

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B, the pain medication is just going

to mask the main problem there.

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What you might have to take it, don't

get me wrong, but what you wanna

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do is you're a bodybuilder, you're

into fitness, you're into health.

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This is exactly the time that you have to

start thinking, okay, I have an injury.

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What can I do?

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What is everything that

I can do in my power?

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to heal and get around and

recover from this injury.

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That's what makes us different

from the general population.

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Everybody gets injured doing something,

but how you choose to deal with that

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injury, work around it, heal that injury.

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That is what differentiates us

from the general population.

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Let me give you a little insight

to professional athletes.

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You might be thinking,

well, I'm not a pro.

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Well, guess what?

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You are a pro.

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And here's how it works.

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Professional athletes

get injured all the time.

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And yet you see them playing

basketball, football, golf, you name it.

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And you're like, gosh, how

do they, how do they do that?

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How do they get this injury

that would cripple most of

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us, and yet somehow come back?

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It's gotta be the drugs.

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They're just on drugs.

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Wrong.

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You know what it really is?

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They have trainers, coaches, doctors

on staff, saunas, whirlpools.

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Ice tubs, deep tissue massages,

heat creams, uh, wrist supports,

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knee supports, whatever type of

support that you're talking about.

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They cease and desist on that.

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They recover.

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They have physical therapists

that use ultrasound.

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These guys have all kinds of

resources at their disposal in

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order to heal from the injury.

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They don't just take a

pain med and just move on.

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They work with that injury

and heal and recover.

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Now, You might be thinking, well, I

don't have that kind of money to hire

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all these people to support me 24x7.

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That's true.

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Let's go through this list.

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Cease and desist, number one, that's free.

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Number two, iced, free to cheap.

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Number three, heat cream's very cheap.

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Four, support, cheap.

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The ultrasound, or the

deep tissue massage.

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Well, if you have medical insurance,

it might be something that you can do.

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If you know of a chiropractor or a

massage therapist, you can certainly go

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for a treatment every once a month and

tell them to rub on that affected area.

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So that doesn't have to be a bank breaker.

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And number 5 and 6 is not something

that you simply need to do every

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single week or all the time.

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Number 5 and 6, the ultrasound and

the deep tissue massage, are things

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that you can do on an infrequent

basis to help along that recovery.

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So it isn't something that you have

to do like weekly or all the time.

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You can certainly ice and

use heat cream support.

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And that will help the

area heal on its own.

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But you can use the other ones,

infrequently, to keep the costs down.

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Now you might not have all these trainers

and all these people around you at all

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times, but you can do the same things

that the professional athletes are doing.

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And that is, they are

taking care of the injuries.

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They're doing something about it.

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I can't tell you how many friends that I

personally know that have either torn a

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muscle or had some type of what I would

consider to be a debilitating injury.

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And I asked them a couple of months later,

So what did you do about your bicep tear?

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What did you do about your hamstring

pull that you had, that pulled muscle?

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And you know what they

tell me most of the time?

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All they did is they ceased and desisted.

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They stopped doing whatever hurts it.

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And that's it.

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They don't do anything.

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They don't do any heat creams.

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They don't do any ice.

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They don't do any stretching.

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They didn't go see a doctor.

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They didn't do anything.

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Those guys are not acting

like professional athletes.

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That's how you can be different.

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Because what you're going to do

is not just ignore an injury.

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You're going to figure out, and

in this example, it's tendinitis.

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You are going to figure

out, how can I heal this?

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How can I get around the pain?

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How can I make it better?

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You don't want to just go,

Whoa, got tendonitis crap.

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Guess I'll never do another pull up again.

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Now what you're thinking

is, damn, I have tendonitis.

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What are the steps I need to do to

heal it, to cure it, to get better,

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to get back to doing pull ups.

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That's what a professional athlete does.

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And that's what you can do.

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There isn't any differentiation there.

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Sure.

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They have more money and they

might have more trainers on staff.

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But the simple fact is if

you change your mindset.

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into thinking about how can I recover

or work around or heal from this

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injury, then you're going to go a

lot further than the typical western

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medicine, which would just say, stop

doing that, take these pain meds.

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Now, like I said in the very beginning,

that might be something that you have to

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do, stop doing that, take these pain meds.

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But when you do that, you're not going

to do anything to heal the affected area.

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And in order to continue with

bodybuilding, to continue to get

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fit and beat your challenges,

you do need to get better.

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And that's why you need to do

everything that's possible in

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your power and your resources to

figure out how you can do that.

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So, in the tendonitis example, cease

and desist, ice, heat creams, support.

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Ultrasound and deep tissue massage.

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Now, I know that seems like a

lot, but when you start doing

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all those things, guess what?

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It is so awesome to be pain free.

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I mean, it is very depressing

when you start to think, oh man.

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You know what's happening.

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When you've had it a few times,

you know you're getting tendonitis.

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And the first thing I start to think about

is this list of six things that I can do.

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How quickly can I recover from this?

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Now granted, it's not like a

week later, you're pain free.

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But if you start doing these things,

within a couple of months, and I know that

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seems like a long time, but guess what?

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I'll be back to breaking personal

bests, when most people are still

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suffering with this pain for years.

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Because tendonitis, a lot of times, if

you stop doing whatever it is that's

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hurting it, yeah, it won't hurt you

anymore, and it starts to go away.

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But what if that something that you

were doing is something you really love?

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What if it was tennis?

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What if it was golf?

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What if it was bicep curls?

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You really just want to give that up?

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Most people would say no, that they don't.

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Right.

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That means you've got to figure

out a way, cure it, to heal

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it, to get past that pain.

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So I really hope these six

things will help you, if you

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indeed suffer from tendonitis.

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Now if you have any questions for this

podcast, you know where to send them.

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It's Marc, M A R C at JustAskMarc.

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com.

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And if you haven't checked out the

blog lately, And that's where I'll be

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posting different stories and whatnot.