A real pain in the **** for many of us. Two seasons ago I was in absolute agony and so set about getting to the bottom of this very annoying injury. Here’s what I learn’t.
To begin the condition is known as lateral epicondylitis or tennis elbow. It’s the result of repetitive micro trauma to the tendons of the wrist extensors muscles. These are the muscles that extend your wrist, the action involved when twisting the grip to accelerate a motorbike for example.
In my view the trauma involved in the kiting version of tennis elbow is a little different to classic tennis elbow. It seems to be caused when we steer the bar aggressively while having the elbow tucked into the rib cage. Such as when sheeting the kite and diving it hard at the same time. Or when going into a fwd spin while sheeting the kite for extra 'pop'. An additional factor is having the wrist flexed laterally or 'cocked' towards the little finger. This is situation that would occur when steering aggressively and would be made worse by bars that are bent downwards. On that note, some people have gotten relief by using a larger diameter bar.
