More of a long-term solution (though I noticed effects in a few months) is making brown rice your staple carb source. It does wonders for reducing inflammation. I read about it in a book called Healing With Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford. Apparently it’s highest in Magnesium and Selenium which aid in nutrient absorption.
My rice cooker is tied with my pinball machine for favorite manmade objects.
Interesting. We do a reduced sugar/whole food diet so rice is often my go to carb, I’ll look into brown rice. Are there different types?
I had to go see my sports doctor over a knee issue and brought up my elbow pain. I’m now in PT for both the knee and elbow. For the elbow I’m doing negative wrist lifts with an isometric pause after 15 reps. Basically take a 3-5lb weight and hold it in in your hand as you support your forearm on a flat surface. Do a controlled lowering of the wrist while loosely holding the weight. Once in the lower position use the opposite hand to assist in lifting the weight back into the starting position. I’ve been doing 15 reps for 3 sets. At the end of each set hold the weight level with the forearm and hold for 30 seconds. These are suppose to help with strengthening and healing the affected connective tissue.
Figured I’d share if someone else is having similar pain.
7 Likes
I wrap my wrists and ankles with KT tape, like bracelets. it makes a huge difference. I experimented with more complex taping patterns but found ankles and wrists were the weak spots (for me). once they were reinforced it caused a chain reaction. The tendons in my feet, fingers, and elbows stopped hurting from reinforcing key spots. trying a new KT pattern today for my back and neck. just google KT tape for blank body part, everyone is different you gotta figure it out yourself.
Hey there, any updates or insights you want to share?
I have had elbow pain on both elbows coming from slide saves or harder single handed slap saves. So it’s def not from pressing the buttons aka RSI I guess. I also do not lean on the machine in any way.
I can’t really locate the pain. It’s not on the outside nor on the inside but somewhere in between and it radiates from there. Also the doc wasn’t able to really tell where its coming from.
The thing is, I play much better when i can slap the machine. How do you decide if a save is worth it during a tournament? Sometimes I feel like I found a good tradeoff, and suddenly a homeplay session can be enough to trigger my elbow pain a few hours later.
Also a strange experience I’ve had- I went to a tournament with a little elbow pain which I have had prior for about 3 weeks. So I played with caution. When I was about to qualify I started to play harder. Then suddenly the pain went away and didn’t really came back until now. Anyone have had a similar experience?
At some point, the damage from too-hard play will dull some of the nerves and cause the pain to temporarily abate. (The nerves get damaged and or overstimulated where the body says, “too much, turn down the volume on that signal”. It’s a lot like when the ambient volume in an arcade is unhealthily loud and your ears shift down to make it more bearable, even though it’s not good for your hearing.) Once the nerve desensitization and or damage wears off, the underlying pain will reappear. This applies to both elbow pain, wrist pain and shoulder pain. Not all cases will go through such a pause; if the damage is more acute, the nerve-dulling can’t overcome it.
The “pain went away, but then a mild session later retriggered it” is something I’ve experienced, too. It’s hard to know how much down time your body needs to truly recover.
Bottom line is, the worse it felt, the longer you should back off.
This is all yet another reason why “tilt warnings” have gone too far. You shouldn’t be able to make a slide save or hard slap save without tilting; it’s not good for either your body or the machine.
1 Like
Thanks for that point of view. However, for me it felt much more like the bloodflow helped my ellbow to heal, since I wasn’t in big pain, just very mild, but afraid i could trigger it again. Also after this event I was able to play normal for like 6 Months. I guess the SDTM Godfather saves aggravated it again.
Yeah, the modern debounce is comically lenient. When I host good players I compensate by reducing warnings or tightening the bob, which they vocally dislike, but what I really want is a software option to dial the debounce milliseconds back to a WPC95 level.
Two-warning slide save should not a be a thing.
2 Likes
I appreciate that Stern and others have added tilt debounce as a system setting! It’s a tool TDs should use more often when dialing in tourney games, I think. I believe on Stern it’s a bit lower by default in competition install.
Speaking as someone who also trashed my elbow for a few months doing a big save with rubber feet on the game. 
It’s not consistent on all spike games, but you can go as low as 500-600 ms on some and it can be worse than WPC era ime. So the options are there at least somewhat.
I’ve been/gone though same type of pain and issues.
This worked really well for me after trying a few similar things that did not work as well:
" Bauerfeind - EpiPoint - Elbow Strap - Stabilizing Supports for Elbow Pain, Swelling and Injury"
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0793CXW6Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
You have it put some pressure on the pain area and it seems to stabilize things so you can recover and/or play and not re-aggravate things.
Also had a lot of success with KT tape for some shoulder issues.
Isolating the tendon connection point is helpful, but in conjunction with that doing strength training for that muscle group will help take the strain off that tendon.
Thanks Cayle,
I already have the compression Bandit cuff and orderd a KT tape.
It feels like the pain comes from the triceps tendon conneced to the elbow.
I try to support the triceps with the KT tape.
@TaylorVA Thanks, I already started with a strengthening routine covering the upper body, shoulders and arms. Hopefully this will take care for it.
I’ve used the KT tape for years, it definitely helps.
For strengthening, consider getting some 3 to 8 foot long elastic bands like used in physical therapy. They help, too. Use the shorter bands held by both hands, long ones with base on floor or anchored
Yes, thats what I’m already using 
Just an additional data point - I tried the Band IT brand one myself and it didnt do squat. The one I linked actually worked, and, as a bonus was way batter made and felt better to wear
Thanks!
One thing not mentioned here (or I missed it), is how you sleep. If you sleep with your hands/arms under your pillow you can stretch out your nerves, and if you sleep on your side and crush your arm that can also cause issues. I’m a side sleeper because of the `hawk, and I’ve had to adjust how I sleep multiple times to fix some issues.
Interesting, and how did you notice that the sleeping position was causing problems?
Just a little update, it doesn’t always have to be tennis- or golfers elbow.
In my case there is an inflamation at the triceps tendon at the elbow connection.
It was diagnosed with ultrasound examination.
Getting my second cortison shot today, but in the long run I guess I have to train and warm up consistently.
1 Like