Painful wrists

Reglanding5

What can I do about sensitive wrists, which can be painful when doing some weight bearing exercises?

Many people suffer from sensitive wrists these days. Hours of working at a computer and smart- phones coupled with poor posture make this a modern day “disease”.

First of all- if any exercise hurts your wrists and you can not “pull your weight up” from the wrist and stop the pain, then you should modify the exercise. We have created a video to help with that so please watch it on /exercises/modification-assists/wrists One other modification, that is not mentioned in the video, is to do the exercise on the forearms, but this will be appropriate only with some exercises such as the Front Support (plank).

As for the issue itself- a number of things may help:

  1. Watch your posture during the day. Sitting for long in the same compromised position will lead to stress and strain. Make it a habit to stand up/ move around/ change positions as often as possible
  2. Whenever you think about it, take a couple of deep breaths. Really deep… this will “lift your rib cage up” and “reorganize” you.
  3. Do wrist exercises whenever you can! With your arms pretty straight- pull your fingers as far back and as far under the wrist as possible- feeling the stretch in the underneath and the top of the forearm. Then try to touch each finger individually to the palm of your hand and stretch it as far back as possible. Not as simple as it sounds… The movements of the fingers and wrists will improve blood flow and circulation and will help a healing process.
  4. Squeezing a tennis ball (or any of the special products found in the market) can help strengthen your fingers and wrists. In the evening… while listening to music or watching TV… or while on the train/bus etc…
  5. Massage your forearms from wrists to elbows. No doubt that you will find sensitive spots!! Massage those as often as you can to relieve the tension stored in them. This can potentially help a lot!