What types of techniques and exercises do you guys use to maintain relaxation in the wrist and elbow? Those two places seem to be the areas where the most tension can occur for most trombone players.

When doing throws farther than 3 positions away my wrist is relaxed, but sometimes I feel that my elbow just gets a little rigid almost like it tries to snap in place for the target position.

any suggestions?

I was told by the trombone profecer at southern miss. university a technique that gets amazing results. it's called the "hi palm".

When i was at his master class he had us shake hands with his curent students about 20 times. he told us when you extend your arm to go shake a hand you put your arm in a corect sixth position.(wrist straight, hand relaxed, fingers out, elbo bent only slightly, moving your shoulder).

he then had us introduce our selfs. he told us to go from a hand shake position, then pulling our hand up to touching our chests with our fingers. as if saying "my name is ....."

when at the hand shake position you should not see you palm. when you reach third position your palm should be parallel to your chest so you can see your palm clearly(this is where you say "Hi Palm"). when you are at first your wrist should be bent and fingers pointing to your chest.
go back and forth from sixth to fist using that idea and saying hi to your palm in 3rd postion. doing this in a relaxed manner should take care of your problem