 Hello and welcome from beautiful Lucerne in Switzerland. My name is Philipp Halfmann and I'm the Director of Exercise and Sport Science at the IAAPH and I'm also the author of Advanced Concepts of Strength and Conditioning for Tennis. In last week episode you could take a closer look inside a professional training session with Swiss National Junior Tennis Champion Alexander Richard. In today's episode I will show you how to cure tennis elbow since many tennis players from recreational to professional will suffer from pain just below the elbow joint commonly referred to as tennis elbow. Don't worry it will not include any medical treatments nor surgery. First I will explain what tennis elbow is and how it develops before I provide you with training recommendations to get rid of the pain. The training recommendations focus on improving the technique for the backhand ground stroke, improving flexibility and strengthening the arm and forearm musculature and improving your equipment choices. So please stay with me. Slapping or punching the ball instead of swinging fully through the shirt increases pressure on the wrist extensor tendon. In other words hitting a backhand ground stroke while leading with a flexed elbow instead of the shoulder or the body will cause inflammation of the wrist extensor tendon. Another key factor is poor hand-eye coordination skills which causes you to hit the ball off center meaning outside the racket's sweet spot causing additional pressure. Next we'll take a closer look at treatment options. You should make contact with the ball in front of the body with the wrist and elbow extended. This can be accomplished by making contact with the ball in front of your right foot while you position perpendicular to the net leading with the shoulder, meaning the shoulder points to the net. Now rotate the trunk and take the racket back so that the racket head points behind you towards the fence. Now release and swing through the shot without stopping the follow-through. Let the racket fly while swinging the left arm towards the back fence. Now you're hitting the ball with power generated from the trunk and forearm and shoulder instead of the wrist extensor musculature. Another option is to switch to a two-handed backhand where you predominantly hit the ball with the left hand thereby decreasing the stress on the forearm of the right arm. Before you walk onto the court and after the match you need to perform the wrist extensor stretch. Flex the shoulder to 90 degrees, extend the elbows, externally rotate the arm and flex the wrist. Fingers point inwards. Now grab the knuckles with the other hand and pull towards the chest. Make sure that you warm up the wrist first by moving your hand up and down a few times. Hold the stretch for 40 to 60 seconds for optimal results and repeat 2 to 3 times. Next we introduce a couple of exercises to strengthen the wrist extensors. Well, that's it again for today's episode. As usual opinions differ, what's your point of view, let us know below in the comment section. A brand new episode will be available next Sunday. So make sure you don't miss it and subscribe. In the meantime I recommend you watch some of the previous episodes. You should really watch them all. If you like what you saw, tell your friends. I'm sure they will appreciate it. I'm Philipp Halfmann, thank you for watching and auf Wiedersehen! Tennis conditioning TV episodes are licensed under Creative Commons. You are welcome to link or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know. Brought to you by Advanced Concepts of Strength and Conditioning for Tennis, available at TennisConditioningBook.com. Music by Dan Oh at DanOhSongs.com