John pulled a week of 12-hour days connecting control wiring. This involved crimping spade lugs onto the wires of each cable (after stripping them back) and then terminating them as he went. It was after this that John experienced a sharp pain on the inside of his elbow; it lasted for more than a month.
Larry spent several long days assembling busway in a new manufacturing plant. Unlike John, he developed pain on the outside of his elbow.
John had medial epicondylitis, commonly called golfer’s elbow. The inner tendon of his elbow was overworked and, thus, damaged. Part of his body’s healing response was inflammation of that tendon and the area around it.
Larry just happened to use his dominant hand in a position different from how John used his dominant hand. Larry put more stress on the outer tendon and developed lateral elbow tendinopathy, also known as tennis elbow.
As if things aren’t bad enough for John and Larry, there are five other types of elbow problems they could develop. These two, however, are the most common.
An often-recommended treatment for elbow pain is to use one hand to grab the fingers of the other hand and pull them back toward your wrist. This method, however, only makes matters worse because it pulls on the tendon that is inflamed. There’s another stretch with palms down on a bench or other flat surface and having your fingers point back at you; this also simply aggravates the condition.
Even people who merely type all day can develop elbow pain, and the reason has to do with how you use your hands. You always close them to perform a task. So, it follows that opening them would probably help (hint: it does). Climbers, who are prone to getting golfer’s elbow and tennis elbow (often at the same time), have two main healing strategies:
- Take a complete break from the activity. This could mean taking a week off of climbing or for a while restricting climbs to only those that don’t require much gripping
- Using a therapeutic device to methodically work the hands in the opposite direction from normal (resistance applied against opening the hands).
Rely on prevention methods
But relying on healing methods means you are still going to have the physical damage and the resulting pain. Use healing methods if you must, but rely on prevention methods. It is much better to prevent a problem than to try to cope with it or fix it.
In John’s case, he could have:
- Traded tasks with someone else, rotating back and forth. At each break time, for example, they trade places.
- Used power crimpers, manual crimpers with longer handles, or ratcheting manual crimpers, depending on the size of the lugs.
- Varied how he holds his crimpers. Where you place a tool in your hand and how you curl your fingers around it will affect the force on the tendons of your elbow. Experiment a bit, and don’t always do it the same way.
- Alternated periodically with another crimping tool that has a different handle design, forcing a change in grip.
- Used less force when crimping. Many people crush crimpers shut, and that is not necessary.
- Switched hands every so often. Most of us are not ambidextrous, but with practice, we can become nearly as good with the nondominant hand (typically the left) as with the dominant.
- Used a power screwdriver if terminating to screw terminals, or used a small battery-powered drill (and proper driver or socket bit) for any other kind of terminal.
Larry could have used a battery-powered torque wrench or the equivalent (e.g., a light battery-powered drill with a torque-setting attachment). One thing about using a manual torque wrench that is correctly selected for the needed torque value is you usually have to use some muscle. This isn’t a problem for a few dozen connections, but it becomes a problem as the number increases beyond that point.
When using a torque wrench overhead as Larry was doing, there’s a tendency to keep a tight grip on it so you don’t drop it. That grip eventually gets felt in the elbow if it’s done too much on any given day. He could have solved this problem by putting a small lanyard on the torque wrench so dropping it to the floor would not be possible. This is an example of eliminating a problem at its source.
Reduce repetitive motions
If the job is going to involve many repetitions of the same task or hand motion, find a way to break it up so you reduce or eliminate repetitive stress injury in your elbow tendons. If you feel a twinge of pain or a sense of tightness or fatigue on an elbow (or any other joint), stop what you are doing.
Switch to some other task; if one is not available, let your supervisor know what is going on. Even if you have to waste 10 minutes standing around to give your elbows a break, that is better than being only 80% capable for the next few weeks while you nurse that elbow along. The short break can be spent visually inspecting work, reviewing upcoming job plans, or doing something else useful.
It would be a smart move to regularly use a TheraBand Flexbar or similar device so you can avoid these problems in all but the most extreme overuse cases. A couple of short sessions a week could be all you need.
