Any Suggestions for Strengthening Wrists?
 

Hi all!

I have very weak wrists, so I can usually only manage about three push-ups before I have to stop because I have this image in my head of wrist bones snapping :p.

I do pilates among other things, and the hands/knees movements- and even the plank - aren't a struggle. It's when I have to actually use my wrists in a push-up fashion that pain arrives. My partner suggested doing them on my knuckles - :eek: ouch!

Even when I was at the height of my fitness, I had this issue.

Does anyone out there have any ideas how I can strengthen my wrists so I can wave bye-bye to my disturbing mental images?

Do you have any hand weights? If so grab them and then pretend like you're jumping rope and the hand weights are the handles, keeping your elbows tight to your sides. Believe me, it won't take long before you feel this exercise, it works the whole arm (and the fanny and the heart), but I always feel it in my wrists first. I usually use 3lbs weights for it and end up having to drop them right around 100 jumps. Then just for a full range of motion, jump backwards.

You might have a little carpal tunnel going on. Do you wake up with your fists tight and hands turned inward? If you do, try sleeping in wrist braces for a while. I have trouble with that too, and I find keeping my hands just outside my shoulders helps. I also do vertical push-ups, leaning against the wall instead of the floor. Not as intense that way. Or do push-ups from your knees instead of your feet. Your wrists won't break but you might make them sore.

reverse grip curls, wrist curls, hammer curls. These should strengthen your forearms and wrists. i doubt you have CT unless you have numbness,tingling and a weakening grip. If you do then these things could hinder more than help. And remember, heavy is subjective. Dont worry about the poundage, if it feels heavy to you, its heavy. I'd start at lighter weights to get used to the "feel" of the excercise and slowly advance the weights. Good luck :)

Awesome. Thanks, guys.

I do have dumbbells, so I'll give those exercises a go today - thanks, spearfisher. I don't think I've skipped rope, almeeker, since primary school! It'll be nice to revisit my childhood. ;)

And lizzycritter, I do sleep with my fists curled under my chin. Perhaps I should look into some kind of brace-age. My partner will laugh at me, I'm sure, 'coz he's so big and manly and I'm little (read 'short') and 'delicate' (pfft!). :rolleyes:

Thanks again!

I sometimes sleep with my wrists bent. I've had bad issues with my wrists. I've fractured both wrists in a motocycle accident.I started taking a generic Aleve and that day I could feel the relief.

I sometimes drive with all my fingers closed in a fist and the middle one gets stuck straight in the air:confused:

Do you show it to slow motorists or discourteous motorists as you drive by them with an expression of amazed confusion - which could easily be mistaken (by slow and/or discourteous motorists) for irritation? :p

I have the same problem with my wrist and have had double ct surgery. I found a pair of weight lifting gloves by GoFit.net that wrap around the wrist for support . They really help alot.

I had bad recurring tendinitis in my left wrist. The best thing I've found to help keep my wrist strong and avoid painful episodes was an inexpensive (less than $20) gyroscopic ball. My husband got me one called Dyna-Flex Pro. It is a bit of a challenge to learn to use it, but the movement and resistance it offers really helps minimize my wrist issues.

Wrist roll-ups. Get a wooden dowel 1" to 1-1/2" in diameter and 12" long. Attach a piece of rope (3'?)to the middle of the dowel. Attach a weight to the end of the rope.

Using an overhand grip roll the weight up to the dowel then back to the floor, repeat. Do the same using an underhand grip. These will definetly strengthen your wrists and foreams.

Um, I didn't say "skip rope" I said "pretend" to skip rope LOL. I hadn't done it in ages either, until last summer when my girls asked me to teach them double dutch. It was a HUGE wake-up call on just how out of shape I'd gotten over the years, because back in the day I could jump rope for hours on end, double dutch included. That day I entered it in to my activities and LOW AND BEHOLD THAT'S A GOOD WORKOUT, burns cals like mad!!! So now I pretend to jump for a little bit pretty much every morning. Recently I added in the hand weights because it's on one of the better DVD's I bought and I could feel a good burn from it. And like I said, I felt it in my wrists first. I don't have particularly weak wrists, but I do have a touch of CT, so I'm always looking to keep my hands and wrists moving in different ways.

rpmcduff wrote "Wrist roll-ups. Get a wooden dowel 1" to 1-1/2" in diameter and 12" long. Attach a piece of rope (3'?)to the middle of the dowel. Attach a weight to the end of the rope.

Using an overhand grip roll the weight up to the dowel then back to the floor, repeat. Do the same using an underhand grip. These will definetly strengthen your wrists and foreams." I second this. Another thing you can do is get a shovel, sledge hammer or any thing like it and hold it at a point that you can manage along the handle, hold it out in front of you and rotate it from left to right and front to back.
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Ron

Thanks again, guys. I've been doing a little bit of everything each day for the last couple of weeks and I can tell the difference. I can now do ten regular floor push ups with no or very little pain. I felt like I was really cheating doing them against the wall! :D And now I have muscles in my forearms. Woo!

I'm about to start p90x, which I know has a lot of wrist work in it. Do the push up bar things really help? Has anyone used them? If you're not sure what I'm talking about (I don't know what they're actually called), it's basically a bar around which you wrap your hand, and the bar has four little 'feet', one bar for each hand.

WMLARDIERI, I might need to find myself some of those gloves when I start this program, just in case. Thanks!

I've found push-up bars to be useful. They take the pressure off your wrists in the same way knuckle push-ups do, but you don't have the additional pain!

Word of warning though... don't buy cheap ones. They need to be solid and very non-slip, and the cheapy ones I bought were not.

You could try the more expensive bars that actually rotate as you go through the motion to keep your arms and wrists lined up. I've only used them once or twice but they felt really good.

I'm glad I read your post before I went equipment shopping this morning, Geoffers! I ended up getting the rotating push up bars (uh-huh, they're not cheap, but probably well worth it in the end - I'm thinking of it as using a small portion of what I would have spent on alcohol over the next 90 days) and, of course, when I got them home I had to try them out. You're right! It feels really comfortable and I got to 15 push-ups with no pain in my wrists. :D