Comparison of the Effect and Durability of Eccentric and Stretching Exercises with Dry Needling on Pain, Grip Strength, and Functional Disability in Athletes with Tennis Elbow

Tennis elbow is one of the most common injuries due to overuse in athletes and even non-athletes. The purpose of the present study was to compare the effect and durability of four weeks of eccentric and stretching exercises with dry needle therapy on pain (pain during rest and pain during activity) of athletes suffering from tennis elbow.

The statistical samples of the study consisted of 20 patients with tennis elbow who were randomly divided into two groups of combined exercises (10 participants including 5 women and 5 men) and dry needling (10 participants including 3 women and 7 men). The combined exercises group did tensile and eccentric exercises three days a week, and dry-needling was performed for the other group three days a week. In the present study, intra-group changes in the variables of the research were measured from pre-test until the end of the fourth week. Regarding the normal distribution of data, paired t-test was used to examine intra-group variation and ANCOVA test was used to examine intergroup differences.

The results of paired t-test and covariance analysis showed that four weeks of combined eccentric and tensile training as well as dry-needling significantly reduced pain (pain during rest and pain during activity) of patients with tennis elbows (P ≥0.05).

According to the results, both methods of combinational training and dry needling significantly reduced pain in athletes suffering from tennis elbow after four weeks of intervention, but the effect size in dry needling was larger.