Building up where tendonitist exists

[Jackeeoh]

So, I have experienced tendonitis and carpal tunnel for most of my life. They called it overuse, and gave me rehab type exercises to help. While, some of the stretches and exercises do help with the day to day pain, any type of repetitive motions cause pain. It feels like I will suffer from tendonitis for the rest of my life. I sure hope not.

Therefore, is there anyone here with experience in how to work out/ build muscles (maybe if my muscles are strong it wont hurt) without severely inflaming the tendonitis or carpal tunnel?

[WavyDavey · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jackeeoh,

Sorry to hear that. I've dealt with tendonitis on and off, but nothing as persistent as what you described.

I believe it's important to get a feel for the joint limitation caused by tendonitis. Sometimes the range of motion is affected in one direction but not others.

In my experience a lot of tendonitis is caused by imbalances by between antagonist muscles. So for the wrists, there's movement of flexing (like closing a fist) and extending (stretching the fingers out). Depending on which type of movement causes pain, you may want to work out the opposite muscle group.  Two exercises you may want to look into are wrist curls and reverse wrist curls.

As an example, I'm dealing with some tendonitis in my elbow, most likely cause by improper form while bench pressing. So extending my arm causes some pain. What I'm doing is working out the opposing muscle group (the biceps), and things are improving. Not sure if that example of muscle imbalance  could apply to your situation, but it's something worth looking at.

You'll probably want to run any exercise plan you have by a doctor. Since the tendonitis has  been with you for a long time, you don't want to wear anything out. Best of luck!