Wrist Extension

[Fábio]

Hi,

I'm having some problems with my wrists in the last couple of weeks, I'm trying to do some more ground based exercises but my wrists don't like that.

I always had a terrible wrist extension range, my active range is probably around 45º and the passive cold is not much more then that, just to put my hands flat on the ground I need to warm-up a lot my wrists. I also use a lot the computer for work so that also doesn't help 😕

I want to try to improve my writs but when I do the standard stretches on the ground I can feel like my hand bone is rocking agains my forearm bone. After some time doing the stretches I can make a little more then 90º but doesn't feel comfortable because of that bode-bone feeling. The stretches that I do here the ones described here https://stretchtherapy.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/wrist-mobility_bodyline-exercises_handstands.pdf, but the first ones are very hard.

Can I do something else to help or some exercise before the stretches? 

Thanks!

[Nathan]

Hi Fábio,

16 hours ago, Fábio said:

Can I do something else to help or some exercise before the stretches? 

You could try using joint distraction, which basically means using bands or something else to pull the forearm away from the hand to create space in the joint when stretching. An easy way to do this would be to stretch one hand at a time and use the free hand to hold the working hand down while pulling the forearm away and performing the stretch. This should be a gentle force - don't try to pull your arm off 

That said, my guess is that you simply have very tight (and probably weak) wrists and the "bone" feeling is how the sensations manifest in your experience. I would just focus on doing the wrist stretches consistently. Do them gently daily, and do them with contract-relax cycles perhaps twice a week. Make sure to warm the wrists up with joint circles, etc. before stretching, and frequently while working at the computer.

Kit has a nice hand and wrist sequence freely available on YouTube:

And our friend Yuri has a very nice hand and wrist sequence available on Vimeo for just a few bucks: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/wristsequence. Yuri's sequence is very detailed and more geared toward hand balancing, although it would still be very relevant to acrobatics, ground-based movements, etc.