Exercises for wrist pain – 6 exercises to relieve pain, strengthen your wrists and improve your practice.

Strong and flexible wrists are important for everyday activities. Whether you’re driving a car, swinging a golf club or a racquet, lifting weights, typing, cooking, or doing anything else with your hands, your wrists are involved.

Stretching and exercising the muscles around your wrists will keep the wrists flexible and strong, and help you avoid repetitive motion and stress injuries.

If you’ve had an injury, these stretches, and exercises can help you recover

Your wrist bones connect your hand to your forearm. Wrist movements are controlled by the forearm muscles. To strengthen your wrists, you’ll work the muscles in your forearms.

If you’re just starting out with an exercise routine, try light stretches and exercises without weights.

Check with your doctor if you have wrist pain. Depending on the cause, they may refer you for treatment or for professional physical therapy.

Tips:

• Make stretching part of your daily routine.
• Do strengthening exercises three times a week.
• Take your time with each movement.
• Try for correct form and steady movements.
• Most of the stretches can be done without any equipment, sitting at a desk or on the couch.

Preventing injury:

For healthy wrists, the best defense is a good offense. You can do these exercises and stretches all you like, but if you have poor wrist habits the rest of the day, they’re not going to help.

Typing at a keyboard is a big culprit of wrist pain. When you’re at a computer, your forearms should be parallel to the floor with your wrists in a neutral position. Your hands shouldn’t always be at an angle — they should be pretty much in line with your arms to reduce strain.

You may need to adjust your keyboard position or use wrist rests to get your hands into a comfortable place. Though it might feel easier to type hunched over in your chair with your wrists going at any angle, that can cause you a lot of pain in the long run.

If you don’t have good wrist posture, you may develop strains and ailments like carpal tunnel syndrome. The nerves in your forearm get pinched, causing numbness, weakness, and pain in your hands.

Once you have the symptoms of carpal tunnel, they can take time to reverse. But you may be able to avoid the condition.

If you take a couple of minutes to stretch and strengthen every day and make sure you have an ergonomic workstation, your wrists should stay flexible, strong, and happy.

“Wrist Strengthening Exercises to Avoid Injury and Increase Gains”

Here are some examples of exercises for you to try.

Start each exercise slowly. Ease off the exercises if you start to have pain.

As with any exercise routine, warm up before you begin.

The Warm-up:

• Loosen up stretch.
• Prayer stretch.
• Fist to jazz hands.
• Wrist flexors.
• Wrist extensors.
• Elbow rotations.

Loosen-up stretch:

This is a simple stretch to loosen up your fingers and hands before you begin exercising. It’s also a good break to relax your wrists and hands if you’re doing repetitive hand motions.

• Sit comfortably and bend your arm at the elbow in a right angle.
• Make a fist, and then slowly open it spreading and stretching your fingers apart.
• Repeat a few times.
• Repeat with your other hand.

Prayer stretch:

You’ll feel this stretch more if you can keep your fingers together. Your fingers will likely begin to bend as you move your hands lower.

• Stand with your elbows bent and palms together, fingertips pointing up at a level that’s just below your chin.
• Lower your hands toward your waist, keeping your hands pressed together and close to your stomach.
• When you feel a moderate stretch in the underside of your forearms, hold the pose for 30 seconds.
• Repeat 2 to 4 times.

Fist to jazz hand:

This is another gentle exercise that focuses on hand flexibility and strength.

• Rest one arm on a table, like you’re about to arm-wrestle someone.
• Make a fist.
• Slowly open the fist and stretch your fingers out as wide as they can comfortably go (do a jazz hand).
• Repeat 10 times, then switch arms. Singing “All That Jazz” is optional.

Wrist extension:

Hold right arm straight out in front of you, with hand up like you’re saying “Stop! In the name of love.” With left hand, gently pull right hand back until you feel a stretch in right forearm.

Hold for 15 seconds, then switch arms. Repeat the sequence 5 times. Be gentle! You don’t want to pull anything, so go slowly and don’t force any movements.

Wrist flexion:

This is the opposite of the last stretch.

Hold your right hand down with wrist at 90 degrees. With left hand, gently press right hand back toward your body until you feel a stretch across the back of right hand and wrist.

Hold for 15 seconds, then switch arms. Repeat the sequence 5 times.

Wrist flexor stretch

• Extend your arm in front of you with your palm up.
• Bend your wrist, pointing your hand toward the floor.
• With your other hand, gently bend your wrist farther until you feel a mild to moderate stretch in your forearm.
• Hold for at least 15 to 30 seconds. Repeat 2 to 4 times.

Wrist extensor stretch

• Repeat steps 1 through 4 of the stretch above, but begin with your extended hand palm down.

Elbow Rotations:

What it does: Improves range of motion for elbow and wrist joints; strengthens forearm.

How to do it: Start on all fours, arms straight. Place your hands beneath your shoulders, fingers pointed front and spread wide. Shift your weight forward over your arms. Rotate at your wrists so that your elbows face the outside, then the inside, keeping your hands firmly planted and arms straight. Do 10 back-and-forth rotations; 3 sets total.

The exercises:

• Ball squeeze strengthener.
• Rubber band strengthener.
• Wrist curls.
• Grip strengthening.
• Rotation.
• Pronated wrist curl.

Ball squeeze strengthener:

You can do this exercise with any kind of ball, about the size of a tennis ball. Or you can use exercise putty, which comes in soft, medium, and hard strengths.

You can also use a rolled up towel or pool noodle for squeezing.

• Sit comfortably and take the ball or putty in your hand, wrapping your fingers and thumb around it.
• Squeeze as hard as you can.
• Hold the squeeze for 3 to 5 seconds.
• Relax your grip slowly.
• Repeat 5 to 10 times.

Rubber band strengthener:

This exercise is simple, but it works the smaller hand muscles. It’s also one you can do sitting at a desk or anywhere else.

• Take an ordinary rubber band, and stretch it around the tops of your fingers and thumb.
• Slowly open your hand to stretch against the rubber band, and then slowly close your hand. Keep the motion controlled.
• Repeat 5 to 10 times.

Grip strengthening:

Many different types of hand grip strengtheners are available. The basic idea is to use a tool that creates measurable resistance for you to squeeze against.

Grippers come in a variety of tensions. You can start with one that’s only a little difficult to close. When that becomes easy, increase the gripper tension.

• Sit comfortably with your arm bent at a right angle, palm facing in, holding the gripper in one hand.
• Squeeze slowly, and release.
• Repeat 8 to 10 times.
• Only your hand should be moving, not the arm.
• Switch hands and repeat.
• When you can comfortably do 2 to 4 sets, try a gripper with more tension.

Rotation:

You can do this with no weights, light resistance bands, or light dumbbells. Start with no weights and add weight only if you feel no pain.

• Sit with your arms bent to 90 degrees and forearms out in front of you with palms facing down.
• Hold a light resistance band or dumbbells, or go weight-free and pretend you’re holding something.
• Slowly rotate your hands so your palms are facing up.
• Slowly rotate your palms back to the starting position.
• Repeat 10 times.

Wrist curl:

You can do this exercise with a resistance band, a dumbbell, or just bodily resistance. If you’re using a light resistance band, hold one end of the band down with the bottom of your foot and grab the other end with your working hand. For dumbbells, stick with 1–5 pounds, depending on your level.

• Sit and hold your arm at 90 degrees, with palm facing up. Arm can rest on your leg, a bench, or a table.
• Curl your wrist up, like it’s doing a baby biceps curl.
• Return wrist to the starting position.
• Repeat 10 times, then switch sides.
• Be sure to move only your wrist. This isn’t a biceps curl, it’s a wrist curl, so keep your arm and shoulder still while your wrist does all the work.

Pronated wrist curl:

These are pretty much upside-down wrist curls. You can use a dumbbell, a band, or nothing at all!

As with the previous move, make sure the movement is only in your wrist. You may want to position your arm so your wrist can hang off your leg or a bench. If your wrist starts by hanging down about 90 degrees, you’ll get a better range of motion for the exercise.

• Sit and hold your arm at 90 degrees, with palm facing down.
  • Curl your wrist up.
  • Return wrist to the starting position.
  • Repeat 10 times, then switch sides.

Fingertip High Plank:

What it does: Increases wrist strength and stability.

How to do it: You have 10 bones that are connected to the wrist joint (two from your forearm and eight from your hand, a.k.a. carpals). Engaging these bones in exercise helps strengthen the whole hand/wrist unit. To start, get into a high plank (arms straight) position. As always, keep your back flat and body in one long line from your head to your toes. From there, shift your weight to your left side and extend your right fingers so that you are balancing on your fingertips. Shift your weight back to the right and extend your left fingers as well. Come back to center and find your balance on your fingertips. Hold for one minute.