Is a short scale guitar better for tennis elbow?

Ac53r2021

OK, so I've a not too bad but persistent case of tennis elbow in my fretting arm, perpetuated by having to use a computer mouse all day to earn my living.

My guitar is a fender strat, I've got light (0.8) strings on it, but still, doing any sort of practice brings out the tennis elbow after a few decent sessions and I need to pause for a week or two. 

I was thinking of going for a fender jaguar due to its short scale, thinking that having my fingers reaching less might help things.

Does anyone else have any experience of this? Will the short scale help me to be able to play more?

Cheers.

Note, this is not meant to turn into a discussion about which guitar to get, I know that gibsons have a shorter scale than fenders ( apart from the jaguar) but I just don't like em, or any other Gibson-esque set of strings. The jaguar seems like an idea to try, all I like about fenders but with the shorter scale length.

gazrichards

I doubt it. Get the elbow fixed. 

Im a soft tissue remedial therapist if that makes my opinion more valid??

NPP

gazrichards said:

I doubt it. Get the elbow fixed. 

Im a soft tissue remedial therapist if that makes my opinion more valid??

should we have a more general tennis elbow thread? This is a serious question, and such a thread would be of personal interest to me. 

monquixote

There already is one somewhere.

I have a Mustang and tennis elbow.

Can't say it makes a difference.

lovestrat74

From what I've read you need to stop playing. Not sure how long for maybe someone who's had it before can provide more details..

ToneControl

we have some physio guitarists on here, who might advise
From my limited understanding, I can't see scale length  helping

Really though, you'll need to get treatment I suspect
Where I live you can't get NHS treatment at present, so private is the way I expect

ICBM

You can easily try it without buying anything, other than a capo if you don’t already have one.

Tune it down a semitone and capo at the first fret - instant 24” scale guitar.

Danielsguitars

How about slide playing, no idea if that'll help but worth a try 

Kebabkid

Sorry OP - Anyone know which is the definitive Tennis Elbow thread on here as there are quite a few? I've been suffering for the last month and would be interested to see what people are saying, doing etc.

Many thanks

francer

This is a bit obvious, so apologies if you’ve already tried this unsuccessfully, but how about swapping your mouse hand? I had to do this and I was surprised how quickly I adapted, mousing left handed is second nature to me know. The other thing that was hurting me was excessive mouse wheel usage and maintaining my handed tensed and resting on the mouse when I was not actually moving the cursor. I taped over the mouse wheel,  (again you’ll adapt to it) and try to take my hand off the mouse when I’m not actually moving the cursor.

I’ve got shortscale (jag) and regular scale Fenders, it won’t make any difference, fix that that mouse hand dude, that’s your problem.

Ac53r2021

Thanks for the advice, its the mouse thats the issue not the guitar, 8 hours a day of that crap with bills to play and a family to feed. Done physio and all that, much improved but sadly not to the degree of total fixedness. 

Sounds like the short scale wont do much then, oh well, thanks for the replies anyway. 

Adey

I had tennis elbow caused probably from playing guitar. It took about 6 months before it completely went. I had a load of wrist twisting and flexing exercises and the like do do regularly.

lovestrat74

Adey said:

I had tennis elbow caused probably from playing guitar. It took about 6 months before it completely went. I had a load of wrist twisting and flexing exercises and the like do do regularly.

Did that involved not playing the guitar @Adey ?

digitalkettle

Check out https://powerballs.com/

Rich31k

digitalkettle said:

Check out https://powerballs.com/

Risky click of the day

zedhex

I feel your pain - have had exactly this problem for the last two years. I went through everything: various therapies, shockwave treatment, PRP injections. I've shied away from having surgery, partly because I don't want to go into hospital in the middle of a pandemic. The only remedies that actually worked for me were eccentric (pronounced 'e-centric' - it means only using the muscle to extend not to pull) loading exercises and the PRP injections.  

One excellent exercise is eccentric loading on wrist rotations - particularly the Tyler Twist: https://www.physio-pedia.com/Lateral_Epicondyle_Tendinopathy_Toolkit:_Appendix_C_-_Details_of_Exercise_Prescription

that's the one that managed to get me back doing BB King style vibrato bends. it does take time though - the first year I was mostly incapacitated, but in the second year I started the exercises. Right now I'm kind of okay - I can play for about two hours without pain, so gigging is now feasible again. But you have to listen to your body - if anything starts hurting, the only thing you can do is stop playing and rest for a while. But don't stop doing the exercises - I do them every day, without fail. 

Using lighter strings is an excellent idea, as is a shorter scale neck, as there will be less string tension and therefore your forearm will be working less. Your tone will suffer slightly, but with judicious tweaking on the amp and adjusting your pickup height, you can get quite a lot of that back.

Good luck!

digitalkettle

Rich31k said:

digitalkettle said:

Check out https://powerballs.com/

Risky click of the day

Lol...I clicked 'send' and thought "glad I have a post count here"

digitalkettle

digitalkettle said:

Rich31k said:

digitalkettle said:

Check out https://powerballs.com/

Risky click of the day

Lol...I clicked 'send' and thought "glad I have a post count here"

But seriously (and I think it was @Grunfeld who originally recommended this a couple of years ago), I've found regular use of a Powerball to keep hands and wrists (and elbows/shoulders) working smoothly. I had issues at the time and it was one of the factors that helped (aside from rest and technique).

Definitely worth a punt for a £15 'diy physio' gadget. There's a specific tennis elbow routine as well.

grungebob

I’ve had golfers elbow. The only thing that worked in the end was stopping doing the activities that hurt it and injections. It’s been 6 months and I can now go back to the activities without pain. 

I should add after reading the other replies below that when I said I stoped doing the activities that hurt it those were any pulling movements involving heavy weights or trying to lift my daughter up with that arm. 

I could still manage light weights relatively pain free which is what I continued to do. 

I’m now back to the original weights. 

fretfinder

I had chronic tennis elbow problems on both sides and two things seemed to cure it for me.
1) Flyfishing. Seriously! Ten years ago I had a few months between jobs and practised flycasting in the garden and it strengthened my forearm to the extent that the tennis elbow stopped.
2) Elastic bands round the finger tips and spread the fingers outwards, do many reps several times a day. A chiropractor told me about this one and it really worked particularly in my non-flycasting arm. I didn’t know till googling it today that you can get a device to use instead of elastic bands.
https://peaksupps.co.uk/products/forearm-extensor-strength-bands?variant=13826414280767&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI39bt4Z2l7gIVSevtCh3MCApJEAQYAyABEgLVx_D_BwE

Adey

lovestrat74 said:

Adey said:

I had tennis elbow caused probably from playing guitar. It took about 6 months before it completely went. I had a load of wrist twisting and flexing exercises and the like do do regularly.

Did that involved not playing the guitar @Adey ?

Not completely. I stopped totally for about a month and just did exercises and massage. I then did a small amount of playing for 5 mins of non-stretching stuff every other day and built up. The Tennis Elbow would probably have gone faster if I had done no playing at all I would imagine.