giving your wrists a little bit of love

Yoga is naturally a practice where we spend a lot of time on our hands and popping our wrists into positions that they are not often in in day to day life. Although these movements are often very good for building strength into the joint and surrounding muscles we can often be left with aching wrists at the end of our class or the next day. It doesn’t even need to be yoga our wrists often need some attention even after a day of typing, scrolling on our phone or driving. So what can we do to give our wrists a little love and maybe build some more strength there?

As a general rule I like to pay as much attention as possible to these three pointers to ensure I am being as kind as possible to my wrists.

– Ensure the weight is spread as evenly as possible in the hands. Maybe lift the palm, so that you are almost cupping the hand, keeping outer edges and fingers on the floor. Almost that feeling of gripping onto the floor with the hands. This will spread the weight

– When on the hands for a while (downward dog and knelt stretches) maybe try to fold the mat slightly or place a wedge or eye pillow under the heel of the hands. This will help to take the pressure off of the angle of the wrist

– Come to the elbows at any time in downward dog or plank poses. Bending the knees in downward facing dog will also take some of the weight out of the wrists.

Specific exercises to help strengthen and stretch the wrists

Often an ache can begin to work into the body where we either have too much movement or not enough or not enough strength so building some additional movements into your movement and yoga practice can be a brilliant way to up the resilience of your wrists.

Prayer pose variants

Prayer pose is a brilliant pose to help strengthen the wrists and these three variants are all taking the wrists in different ranges of movement to strengthen in different ways.

– Strong Prayer – Bring the palms of the hands together in front of the chest with the lower arms as parallel to the floor as possible with the elbows moving out to the side. Begin to press the palms together, slowly increasing the strength of the press. Stay for 10-15 breaths pressing the palms together. Then take backs of hands together with fingers pointing to the floor to do similar

– Opening Prayer – Coming to the same prayer starting point press the hands together and slowly move the palms away from each so you’re pressing only into the finger tips. Drawing the elbows out, away from the body. Keep the movement slow and then bring the hands back together. Repeat 5 times with control

– Drawing Down Prayer – Bring the palms to touch and create a little pressure, but not enough to cause discomfort. Then slowly draw the hands down to the floor so the palms begin to separate and open towards the floor. Keep the whole length of the fingers touching. Lighten the pressure as you inhale, and increase the pressure as you exhale. Work slowly so that you stretch but never strain the joints. Elbows remain pointing to the sides but the forearms will no longer be parallel to the floor.

Childs Pose

While settling the rest of the body to the floor childs pose can be a great way to stretch through the wrists.

1. Coming to be knelt, take the knees nice and wide, bottom back towards the heels and reaching the arms forward in order to sink the body down to the floor and let the head rest on the floor or onto a cushion. Stay here for five minutes or longer, using your breath to help you sink deeper into this pose and become more comfortable as you gently challenge and open your hips, ankles, neck, and chest, and release synovial fluid into your knees, lubricating the joints.
2. Press the bottoms of finger pads into the floor gently and evenly to align wrists with the arms.
3. Then lift fingers of one hand away from the floor and use the other hand to draw them back towards the head gently, swap sides.

Strengthening the forearms

In order to have strong wrists we need to strengthen the muscles around them within the forearm. This will help to support the actual wrist joint and take some of the pressure away from the joint itself.

– Box Pose Wrist Variant – Take the wrist in its full range of motion while on hands and knees. Listen to the body and once again beware of anything more than discomfort. On hands and knees start by taking the body weight slightly over the wrists, keeping the core strong, belly pulling back to the spine and the pelvic floor engaged. Then come back to neutral, keep your hands shoulder width apart but turn the hands out to the side so they are at ‘3 and 9 o-clock’. Shift the weight backwards and forwards slightly. Finally turn the hands so the fingers are
pointing towards the knees as much as possible and again move the weight subtly backwards and forwards. Repeat as much as you would like to but being mindful of the joint

– Wrist Flexion – Standing, sitting or kneeling bring the hands out in front of you at shoulder height, arms long. Flex the wrists so that the fingers point up with the palms facing away from the face, push away with the heel of the hand and then with control bring the fingers to point to the floor without moving the arm. You should be slowly bringing the palms through horizontal and then pointing down so that palms are moving to face towards you. Repeat (This can also be done with the hands clenched in a fist.

– Wrist Rotation – Starting from the same arms out stretched pose, fingers pointing to the ceiling, slowly rotate the hands out to each side and down to point to the floor. Keep the movements slow and try to ensure as much of the movement is coming out of the forearm. Slowly repeat to top position. This time the hands are being rotated from 12 o clock to 3 or 9 o clock and down to 6 o clock and back around.

Wrist therapy

As well as strengthening we also need to ensure the joint is moving well pre and post class. These simple stretches often work for me

– Wrist circles –  Clasping the hands together by interlinking the fingers rotate the hands one way and then the other getting the join moving sinuously

– Wrist flexion – Let one hand hang heavy from the arm so that the palm is facing back towards the arm and use the other hand to bring some light pressure onto the back of the hand encouraging the hand back a little further. Repeat with the opposite hand

I hope that these may be useful exercises they have definitely helped me to build strength and alleviate pressure at the end of an active class. Ultimately building as much safe movement into the joint will help it be a healthy joint. Keeping the joint moving means it can get a good supply of blood which in turn increases its mobility. A healthy joint is one with as much blood flow around it as possible. When doing any form of exercise please ensure that the joint is as warm as possible. Gentle movements to start with so as not to over work the joint cold. As eve please listen to your body and if applicable seek the advice of a doctor before trying anything new.