PART 5 - THE ELBOWS

Strengthen and stretch your forearms to lessen the strain on your joints

Think suspension, and invariably it’s linkage systems, springs and damping that instantly come to mind. But as mountain bikers we know that our arms and legs have more “travel” than any frame or fork. There’s no CE testing or maintenance programme for our limbs and joints, however, even though the forces you experience when riding are extreme and repetitive. So it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this combination can cause some funky issues in your joints.

If you’ve been riding for some time, you’ve probably experienced an occasional niggle or soreness in your elbow joints. Not from impacts necessarily, but from the relentless bombardment of vibrations and muscular tension they undergo every ride. Compounded over time, without proper care, these small niggles can become larger issues in the form of tendonitis – the most common form for riders, lateral epicondylitis, is also known as tennis elbow.

At its onset, tennis elbow is relatively easy to ignore, which is exactly what most of us do in the hope that it will simply go away. And in many cases it will clear up on its own, as it may have started due to an increased volume of riding or training. But rather than cross your fingers and hope that your tennis elbow simply disappears, we are here to offer a longer, more robust approach, and one that might save you from some very uncomfortable and frustrating times ahead.