Golf Elbow is a common paddling injury, golf elbow is the tendonitis on the inside of the elbow joint. When we bring the paddle head down to the water through the air there is no resistance on the paddle head, but when the paddle head engages with the water there is an incredible load that is weighted up onto the paddle and because we are holding that paddle the load is going to come through our body.
If we bring the paddle head down to the water and bend our elbow, our arm lever is going to break and the load is going to come through our small muscles, the bicep and shoulder.
If we bring the paddle head down to the water and keep our elbow straight and rotate through our torso, then we are going to use much bigger muscles such as the “lats”, “obliques” and “quads”.
Please remember, if you are pulling from your bicep and pulling over and over at every stroke you are going to break or inflame it. The bicep tendon is attached on the inside of the elbow joint and at the front of the shoulder. If the bicep tendon breaks at the top, you will feel a pinched shoulder nerve pain and if the tendon breaks or inflames at the bottom you may develop golf elbow. Golf elbow can take a long time to heal, and realistic rest is the only formula which will put you out of paddling for some time, so the best method is to avoid it in the first place and rotate your torso using the bigger muscles.