Inside of the elbow, not the outside
Golfer's elbow sits on the inner side of the elbow — the bony bump you'd bang on a desk edge. It hurts with grip, with pulling, with the impact of a shot off the turf, and often with rows, deadlifts and carrying.
It's the mirror image of tennis elbow, and it gets confused with it constantly, which matters because the loading exercises point in different directions.
Who ends up with it around here
- Golfers, especially with heavy range sessions or fat contact off Iowa turf
- Lifters doing high pulling volume, carries or heavy grip work
- Pickleball players with a lot of drives and dinks
- Trades and manual work with repeated gripping and torqueing
- Anyone who added a lot of hand-intensive work quickly
Symptoms and behavior
- Pain on the inner elbow with gripping, pulling or wrist flexion
- Discomfort at impact during a golf swing
- Soreness after rows, deadlifts, carries or shovel work
- Tenderness over the inner bony point and the tendon just below it
- Sometimes aching down the inner forearm
Why medial elbow pain persists
- Grip and wrist flexor capacity not being progressively rebuilt
- Continuing full golf or lifting volume through symptoms
- Swing mechanics or grip pressure contributing repeatedly
- Confusion with tennis elbow leading to the wrong loading plan
- Ulnar nerve or medial-side joint involvement being missed
Conservative care and where shockwave may fit
As with lateral elbow pain, the core of care is progressive tendon loading, activity and equipment modification, and a graded return to golf, lifting or work demands. Nerve involvement on the inner elbow needs to be screened for, because tingling into the small and ring fingers changes the picture.
Shockwave therapy may be discussed as an adjunct for persistent cases when appropriate. The elbow evidence base is mixed, and it should be presented that way.
What an evaluation involves
- Symptom localization and provocation testing for the flexor-pronator group
- Ulnar nerve and elbow ligament screening
- Review of golf, lifting or work exposure and grip demands
- Plan discussion, including whether SoftWave is appropriate
When to seek prompt medical attention
- Numbness or tingling into the small and ring fingers, or grip weakness
- Pain after a fall, direct blow or a sudden pop while lifting
- Loss of elbow motion, locking or marked swelling
- Unexplained night pain, fever or swelling
Who may not be appropriate for shockwave
- Suspected ulnar nerve entrapment, ligament injury or fracture without assessment
- Active infection, open wound or suspected tumor at the treatment site
- Cases identified at evaluation as unsuitable for shockwave
- Undiagnosed medial elbow pain with neurological symptoms