Re: Tennis elbow/"casters' arm"

Gordy:

Despite my acute awareness of tennis elbow these past couple years, I am 
still amazed at the variety of mistakes that can make us more 
susceptible to injury. And the slack created by a poor pickup certainly 
prompts an undesirable series of cascading events. My own solution to 
this particular problem is to tell the student:

Keep the rod tip in the water; don't worry, it's waterproof.

I usually put this in the context of avoiding slack as you retrieve the 
fly, then explain that avoiding slack also helps when casting. That 
particular emphasis is a bit misleading, and I'm not sure from whom I 
got it. But it works.

Regards,

Tom

Gordon Hill wrote:

>                   MORE ON, "TENNIS ELBOW"
>
> I'd like to develop one more point on the direct causes of tennis 
> elbow in casters:
>
> One of the PRIME causes that I see, is with the pickup.
>
> This is one of Tom White's pet peeves..........the caster who finishes 
> the retrieve, then picks up for the next back cast with the rod tip 
> high above the water.  As this is done, the caster has to use a lot of 
> pickup force in a short interval....The distance between that rod tip 
> and the water creates slack. This has to be taken up before the rod 
> can begin to load and the effective stroke begin.  The caster has 
> shortened his available stroke length.  He then uses a lot more 
> force.   When this happens, there is tremendous strain on the the 
> extensor muscles of the forearm and hand most of which is transferred 
> to the lateral epicondyle of the elbow (that bony point of tenderness 
> on the outer side of the affected elbow).  Doing this repeatedly is a 
> perfect formula for getting "casters arm" (tennis elbow) in some 
> folks, because it provides repetative trauma concentrated at one small 
> point of vulnerability.
>
> Once that happens, and it becomes chronic, then anything which puts a 
> strain on these muscle attachments will bring on the pain and 
> perpetuate the problem.
>
> The casting solution is obvious to good instructors.....but rarely to 
> the afflicted caster.   As Tom emphasizes to all his students and 
> candidates,  the pickup is best done with the rod tip close to the 
> water for a longer back stroke to spread the energy over a wider arc, 
> thus avoiding a spike of power with the arm in its most vulnerable 
> position.  This is beautifully demonstrated in Lefty Kreh's video, 
> "Lessons with Lefty" as Sarah Gardner plays the part of his unknowing 
> student while he corrects her errors.
>
> This is still not always enough to cure the casting problem, which can 
> be compounded by making that pickup with  too much line resistance. 
> There are 3 causes for this:  1.) Too much _line length_ out there in 
> the water at pickup time.  2.) Too much _line weight_ out there (this 
> is where the heavy sinking line comes in to play).   3.) Pickup with a 
> heavy weighted fly.....like a Clouser.....especially if that weighted 
> fly is at the end of a long leader.
>
> There is another casting fault which has yielded this problem, in my 
> experience.  This is repetative casting with the casting arm extended 
> too far.  So often we see poor casters casting with the arm way out 
> and up.  This makes very inefficient use of arm power.  The cast 
> suffers, and sometimes so does the elbow.
>
>                                                                      
> Gordy 
>
>
>