The only way I found to make it easy to insert or remove them, was to leave them in an unheated garage through an Indiana winter.
You can try spraying them with Sailkote or another dry lubricant, but if you disassemble them on a regular basis, I would strongly recommend upgrading the elbows with Hobie part number 1957. Otherwise, everytime they heat up, the rubber pieces will swell and get tight.
And if you still have the original black tendons, it's only a matter of time till they will fail anyway. At least get the white re-inforced tendons before you wrestle too much with the snug fit.