Elbow tendonitis and widow grips

[Arctic Hunter]

I've been dealing with some horrible tendinitis (I think) in my bow arm elbow for the last couple of weeks.  Pretty sure it's from recently getting back into weight lifting. I just got a new PMA and have been wanting to get it tuned. Shooting today went from mildly uncomfortable at full draw to hardly being able to hold at full draw at all. Anybody with this issue noticed a difference in going to a lower wrist grip? Planning to make a doctors appointment Monday. I've had surgery on both shoulders, so I'm sure it's all related. 

[Tajue17]

it might be what they call tennis elbow.

[mbugland]

Don't know about a PMA but a few years back I went from really heavy Hills to an SAii to add some mass to my overall bow trying to solve what they referred to as "Golfers Elbow"
If I remember right it was a difference of what side of the elbow, inner or outer... mine was inner.
I had assumed mine was from shooting those 100lb+ ASL bows, that had relatively no mass so all the energy was landing in my hand.  Took about 5yrs off from that went down to a 65# widow, and a couple of ILF rigs with a bit more mass, settled into two Hurst bows for the better part of the last 3 years... and just now coming back to a 50/60# Hill in the last couple weeks.  Definitely miss ASL bows

If you're hitting up the doc, they will have some deliberately tests and things. I did a lot of "Nerve Glides" kinda like stretches for your nerves that you aren't suppose to hold. And they had me do some weird rubber twisting negative thing that seemed to help a little bit, with like a 1" diameter foam rubber thing. It's been a total of 8yrs trying to deal with it. that pains gone now but my hand falls asleep a lot and they said they are talking about rerouting my ulnar nerve at my elbow... long run im. It sure if that's a cause or effect. And haven't decided if I want someone cutting into me for something so trivial

Good luck with your docs. Hopefully they are more user friendly than some of mine

[LookMomNoSights]

I don't think grip is going to significantly influence your elbow issue.   On a few occasions, I have dealt with this kind of issue over the many years I've been at this.  Some of the times it was brought on by resistance training (weights) as you are dealing with now.  Other times,  repetitive motion of many sorts can bring on this aggravation or inflammation...... this is actually referred to as "repetitive motion injury".  Year before last,  I had just purchased a new log splitter,   a big mother .....and of course,  was itching to fire it up and see what it was capable of.  I split a lot of wood and fast.   Well, taking the split pieces off the carriage and flinging them into the pile a few hundred times, I didn't feel it immediately .....but the next day,  holy moly ..... could hardly bend my left elbow.   That took at least 3 weeks to get back to 100% or enough to say shoot my bows.   
There is no fast way to remedy what you are dealing with providing it is a "tennis elbow", tendonitis (could actually be BICEPT tendonitis!  Research into this!) .....  it's going to take time and laying up on that arm.  In certain cases,  I found that once the inflammation showed signs of improving noticeably, I began VERY LIGHT resistance training once again, but with bands.  I'm talking very light here!  This to keep things moving and to provide the tendons with a little resistance stretching under very mild load,  with hopes of actually speeding the full recovery.  That is something you could try.  I had very good luck.  Also,  I use natural anti inflammatory supplements when trying to heal this up...... a product called Zyflamend (look into that).
Circle back to your original question,  I don't believe grip change / grip posture is going to make any difference. You need to heal it up and THEN get back at it! 

[McDave]

Tennis elbow is caused by an accumulation of microtears, not a single traumatic injury.  Tennis elbow would likely be caused by shooting a bow with a lot of hand shock, which Black Widows are not known to have.  What you are describing sounds more like a traumatic injury than tennis elbow.  While it is possible to treat tennis elbow successfully on your own, which I've done myself, a traumatic injury is best treated by a doctor or physical therapist.  So it's good that you're going to have a doctor take a look at it, because treatment for tennis elbow is different than treatment for a traumatic injury.

Grips are very important.  Once I had a Morrison Shawnee, a beautiful bow, that I bought used.  My elbow started to hurt within a month of starting to shoot it.  I'm sure it was the grip, although that grip evidently worked well for hundreds of other people.  Same thing could happen with a BW grip.  That's why they make 5 different BW grips now.  One size does not fit all.  So if nothing else works, it might be the drip.  Unlikely, but possible.  I haven't had any elbow problems since I stopped using the Shawnee.

[Tim Finley]

I have had a bad elbow for years, I cant straighten my arm and I cant shoot a pistol grip only low wrist locators dont give me pain . I also stay away from asl no matter what others say all D bows have some shock . Ive gotten cortisone shots in my elbow and they completely take away the pain sometimes for as much as 5 years .