It’s hard to get a handle on life with chronic wrist pain (see what I did there?). Think about how involved the wrist is. Can’t even scroll this post without some cross pollination. It moves the hand! If you can’t do that effectively your evolutionary opposable thumbs are rendered obsolete. In this article you’ll get what’s considered your wrist, its functions, sources of pain, ways to treat pain, and how to prevent your hand rotators from tipping the ache scale.

SECTIONS:

What Is A Wrist
Causes Of Wrist Pain
Relief For Wrist Pain
How To Prevent Wrist Pain
My Thoughts

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What Is A Wrist

The wrist, also referred to as the carpus, is a synovial condyloid joint controlled by forearm muscles. It connects the metacarpal hand bones with the radius and ulna of the forearm.

The wrist being a synovial joint means it’s a joint filled with synovial fluid, allowing for greater mobility. All synovial joints are dual layered: one layer is fibrous, the other contains a synovial membrane that secretes the fluid to lubricate joints.

The wrist is made of 8-9 short bones called carpals, along with many component bones and other joints.

Importantly there’s the radiocarpal joint, which is the primary wrist joint and responsible for flexion and extension.

Then the distal radioulnar joint, that is a pivotal point for the forearm bones.

And there’s also a midcarpal joint and a number of intercarpal joints.

Together you get a pair of wrists able to conduct flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction of the hand.

Although the high number of wrist-related bones are to your benefit, they influence nerves and blood vessels to travel a small tunnel-like path called the carpal tunnel.

As we get deeper into today’s mission it’s notable that the more mobile a joint is the more unstable it’ll likely be, leaving room for diverse injuries with overuse and misuse.

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Causes Of Wrist Pain

No one wants pain, but pain may want you. Nagging injuries to body parts you constantly use put you in a funk whether it’s your lower back, hamstrings, elbows, shins, and/or your hand connectors.

Several causes of wrist pain exist. They can be directly muscular, deferred, or in the joint itself. The main causes of wrist pain are:

Muscle knots. Deferred pain happens often with knots, leading to a sore wrist. Muscle knots are contracted balls of tissue that refuse to relax even when you’re at rest. A personal story is that I developed a wrist “injury” without a pinpointed cause back when I was stationed in South Korea. The pain lasted so long I figured a structural issue was at hand (big pun). I hit the doc and an X-ray showed nothing. He sent me on my way, yet the pain persisted. Fast forward.. how’d the pain leave? Forearm massage. I had a mean knot.
Poor lifting form. Form miscues can occur inside or outside of strength training. Bad wrist positioning with heavy loads can provide the trauma necessary to give those painful impulses you’d rather avoid. This particularly occurs with hyperextension of the wrist.
- Common exercises causing potential hyperextension: push ups, back barbell squat, front barbell squat, upright row, military press, bench press, and bicep curl.
- Note: wrist flexibility plays a role in what you can handle along with hand and applicable forearm muscle strength, but positioning/form is your greatest asset.

Overtraining Syndrome. One of the cumbersome effects of overtraining syndrome is muscle aches and joint pain. Overtraining or overreaching is when your physical stress outpaces your ability to recover.

Lack of mobility. I touched a little on wrist flexibility/mobility being a possible issue, but this is also a developing problem that can originate from other muscle groups. For example shoulder immobility can lead to wrist overcompensation, which raises injury risk.
Strength not matching load. If you’re structurally unable to match a load your muscles take on you’re doomed, unless you supplement. By supplement in this case I mean wrist wraps.
Common wrist ailments:
- Repetitive strain injury: the result of repetitious movement without adequate recovery. What happens here is muscle tissue gets inflamed and worse is a possible stress fracture. Throwing darts, typing, shooting a basketball, weightlifting, mommy wrist, gaming, etc..
- Arthritis: chronic inflammation of the joints. Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are conditions to look out for.
- Carpal tunnel syndrome: the result of increased pressure on the median nerve. This can be caused by many factors, IE fracture or inflammation.
- Blunt trauma: strains, fractures, or sprains from sudden mishaps like falling and breaking said fall with your hand.

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Relief For Wrist Pain

As complex as the body is, remedies tend not to be. The similarities to bouncing back from other injuries are actually quite kindred:

Self-myofascial release. If your pain threshold was crossed due to balled up muscle fascia, self-myofascial release can clear the air. Foam rolling, stick rolling, hand massaging, softball pressure, trigger massage, etc..

Trigger points that may cause wrist-related pain. [3]

Stretch. When tolerable, start implementing wrist stretching to improve mobility and expedite recovery. But not while inflammation and pain is rampant.

Wrist stretches to improve flexibility and mobility. [6]

PRICE Acronym
- Protect: refrain from further injuring your wrist.
- Rest: allow time for your wrist or wrists to bounce back after a pounding with repetitiously heavy weight, especially when not in a pain-free state. When pain isn’t bearable give them a break altogether from lifting.
- Ice: apply ice 15-20 minutes at a time to help reduce any swelling.
- Compression: using an ace bandage or similar wrapping.. compress your wrist to help reduce inflammation.
- Elevation: stowing your wrist above your heart for 2-3 hours a day helps get rid of that unwieldy inflammation too.
Try NSAIDs if you have to. When nothing else seems to work non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs help reduce inflammation, but don’t rely on these, for they play a role in you not getting the most muscle growth from exercise recovery.

Note: See a physician when pain and swelling doesn’t show signs of subsiding within a week or so during treatment. The sooner, the better in the event your injury is severe.

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PLANS

How To Prevent Wrist Pain

Again. Body? Complicated. Maintenance? Not complicated. So not complicated that many preventative measures mirror treatment:

Self-myofascial release. Keep those knots from forming in the first place; 1-3 times weekly.
Stretch. Ensure your wrists become and/or remain mobile with dynamic ranges of motion by stretching 4+ times weekly.
Warm up. Prior to getting busy in the weight room conduct full body warm ups, particularly the wrists in the case you have chronic issues.
Get stronger. When strength doesn’t match load, you have to use wrist straps to prevent injury and/or hindered performance. But be aware of muscle deterioration. Supplementing your wrists without taking time to build the applicable muscle strength and joint stability is a bandaid. Strengthen your hands and forearms with abduction, adduction, supination, pronation, extension, flexion, and isometric holds.
- Exercises to try:
  - Dead hang
  - Hand gripper
  - Farmer walk
  - Barbell wrist curl
  - Reverse barbell wrist curl
  - Dumbbell wrist twist
Take breaks. If your job or daily habits call for repetitive movements involving the wrist, take breaks. Shake your wrists, get blood flowing. Give yourself a quick hand and forearm massage.. give that TLC throughout the day.
Recover. Bounce back from your training to prevent overtraining and limit injury risk. This is also part of the benefit of balancing upper body and lower body training.
Improve your balance. Are you considered clumsy? Do you find that the ground tends to slip from beneath your feet? Work on that balance. Limit falls. When you fall it’s natural to break your descent with a hand.. this leads to blunt trauma.
Improve joint strength. Stronger bones and joints handle larger loads, so get your vitamin d and calcium from quality sources IE dairy. In addition your protein intake is key. Maximize protein synthesis to boost protein’s effects even more.
Monitor form. Neutral wrist position is best for your wrist joints. Even for push ups, they can be done with your knuckles if needed. Elbows and wrists are often stacked for pressing movements, but for the lifts where this isn’t possible strength, flexibility, and most of all proper form is key.

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My Thoughts

Everyone has their system, but for any muscle or joint that begins to ache I go through checkpoints:

Have I done anything out of the ordinary?
Is there something I constantly do without proper precautions?
How have my recovery tactics been lately?
Nutrition still on point?
Am I hydrating like I’m supposed to?

Then the actions:

Channeled self-myofascial release
PRICE
Stretch if I can tolerate it
Pain super severe? I’ll try some Motrin
If it shows no signs of improvement after a week or two, I’ll make that doc appointment

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So, It’s About That Time

As irritating as they are, minor injuries are part of the life we’ve signed up for. The wrist joints are some of the most used joints you possess. Treat them and your entire body with respect by implementing preventive measures before a problem even presents itself. Be wise when putting those muscles to use and Be Great.

Sources:

[1] britannica.com/science/wrist-anatomy

[2] ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK534779/#_article-31408_s1_

[3] triggerpoints.net/forearm-hand-pain

[4] assh.org/handcare/blog/anatomy-101-wrist-joints

[5] medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/_/viewer.aspx?path=MosbyMD&name=hyperextension.jpg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com%2Fhyperextension

[6] pinterest.com/pin/757519599799627812/