If you play padel two or three times a week and have been feeling discomfort on the outside of your elbow for a while, you are not alone. Epicondylitis — what everyone calls tennis elbow — is the most common overuse injury in racket sports, and in padel it appears sooner than people think.
What almost nobody connects is that the problem rarely starts in the elbow. It starts in the hand.
What exactly is padel elbow pain?
Lateral epicondylitis is inflammation of the tendons that connect the forearm muscles to the bone on the outside of the elbow. Those muscles include the ones you use to close your hand and stabilise your wrist.
In other words: every time you squeeze the handle, those tendons are working. A padel match involves between 300 and 500 shots. Multiply that by three sessions a week.
At first the pain usually shows up only after playing. Then it appears during the match. And in the advanced stage, it hurts when you open a jar or shake someone's hand. By then you are months behind.
The chain almost nobody sees: slippery handle → more pressure → elbow
Here is the mechanism that matters.
When your racket handle slips — because of sweat, humidity or a worn grip — your body does the only thing it can: squeeze harder. It is not a conscious decision. It is a reflex. Your brain senses the object slipping away and increases your grip force.
That increase in pressure has two consequences:
- More sustained load on the forearm. Not just at the moment of impact, but between shots too, because you do not dare relax your hand.
- More vibration transmitted. A tense hand conducts impact upwards far better than a relaxed one. The vibration that should dissipate in the grip travels to your elbow.
That is why two players with the same technique and the same racket can end up one with a perfectly healthy elbow and the other at the physio. The difference lies in how much force they need to stop the racket moving in their hand.
The four real causes, in order of frequency
1. Slippery grip
This is the most common cause and the easiest to fix. A fabric overgrip soaked with sweat loses its grip twenty minutes into a match. From then on, you are squeezing too hard for an hour and a half.
If your hands sweat, a fabric grip is not the right format for you. You need a surface that channels sweat away instead of absorbing it, because once the fabric is soaked there is no going back within the match.
2. Wrong handle thickness
A handle that is too thin forces you to close your hand more to hold it. One that is too thick stops your fingers closing properly and also increases tension.
The quick check: holding the racket, you should be able to fit the index finger of your other hand between your fingertips and the base of your thumb. If it does not fit, the handle is too thin. If there is room to spare, it is too thick.
3. Excessive vibration
Very stiff rackets, with hard EVA rubber and a diamond shape, transmit more impact. If you also hit outside the sweet spot, vibration shoots up. An undergrip fitted underneath the grip dampens part of that transmission before it reaches your hand.
4. Playing more without adapting
Going from one match a week to four in a month is the classic recipe. A tendon needs weeks to adapt to a new load; enthusiasm needs none.
What you can change today
Check your grip before anything else. It is the cheapest, quickest fix and where most of the problem lies. If you have to dry your hand or the handle when you finish playing, your grip is costing you your health.
Try consciously relaxing your grip pressure. During the knock-up, hold the racket with the minimum force needed to stop it slipping. You will notice you can play with far less tension than you normally use. Your grip should only tighten at the moment of impact.
Change your grip more often than you think. A worn grip does not look worn: it loses grip long before it starts to fray.
Stretch your forearm before and after. Arm extended, palm facing down, and gently pull your fingers towards you with your other hand. Thirty seconds each side.
Where a silicone grip fits in
The Helix Pro Grip tackles the very first link in the chain. Its non-slip silicone with a helix texture does not absorb sweat: it channels it away. That means your grip in minute 90 is similar to minute 1, so you do not need to squeeze harder and harder as the match goes on.
If you also want to reduce vibration, the Invicta goes underneath the grip and adds a cushioning layer between the handle and your hand. Helps prevent tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis): it dampens vibration and lets you grip without over-squeezing, two of the causes that load the elbow the most. We explain it in depth in padel undergrip: what it is and what it does.
You can see all the options in padel grips and overgrips.
When to stop reading articles and see a professional
This article is about sports equipment, not medicine. If the pain has lasted more than two or three weeks, wakes you up at night, if you notice a loss of strength when gripping everyday objects or if your elbow is swollen, see a physiotherapist or an orthopaedic specialist. Changing your grip helps prevent the problem; it does not cure a tendon that is already damaged.
What you can do from today is stop giving your forearm reasons to overwork.
Helix Pro Grip is a Spanish brand of silicone grips with a design registered with the EUIPO. Over 100,000 grips sold.