I have a member who plays golf four or five days a week during the season, low single-digit handicap, serious about his swing. The inside of his right elbow started aching a few months ago, right where the forearm tendons attach. Rest, a brace, some ibuprofen before rounds. It would settle down, he’d get back to full practice volume, and within a couple weeks it would flare right back up.
Golfer’s elbow gets treated like a given, almost a rite of passage for anyone who plays enough. It doesn’t have to be.
The forearm is absorbing more impact than it’s built to handle
Every strike sends force back up through the club and into the hands. A tight grip and hard downward force through the ball, day after day, load the tendons on the inside of the elbow that control wrist flexion and forearm rotation. Some of that load is completely normal. The problem is those tendons rarely get any direct conditioning work outside of golf itself, so they’re absorbing repeated impact without ever building the capacity to handle it.
From the tee box, it just looks like a good, committed swing. Nobody’s tracking how much of that force the forearm is quietly eating on every single strike.
Rest and a brace don’t build the tissue back up
The instinct is to treat the elbow directly. Rest, a brace, anti-inflammatories, maybe some easy stretching once it calms down. None of that is wrong exactly, the tendon probably does need a break from full-volume swinging for a bit. But going straight back to five rounds a week the moment it feels better just reloads the same undertrained tissue, and the pain comes right back within a few weeks.
What actually worked
The work started away from the golf swing entirely. Progressive forearm and wrist loading, eccentric wrist flexor work first, built up gradually enough that the tendon could actually adapt instead of just being asked to survive the next round. We also worked on grip pressure, since he was gripping the club far tighter than he needed to, which was adding load with zero benefit to the swing itself.
Eight weeks in, he’s back to his full playing schedule and the elbow hasn’t flared since, because the tissue can finally handle what golf is asking of it.
Small aside: building that kind of progressive loading plan, and knowing how much volume a healing tendon can actually take before it’s ready for daily play again, is exactly the kind of reasoning the Bio-Performance Engine runs through for every client, golf or otherwise.
Ramses
Personal Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor