Tips To Improve Wrist Strength & Mobility

It’s nearly been a whole year of doing home workouts, which means quite a lot of bodyweight exercises have been done, including the ultimate upper body exercise - the push-up! Other than push-ups being hard, the biggest complaint I hear is that the wrists hurt or are very uncomfortable. The wrist actually has 35 muscles involved when moving it so it’s understandable so many experience pain, particularly during this exercise. It’s important to build up the strength and mobility of this relatively small part of your body!

Some potential reasons it’s causing you discomfort are: 

• You’re spending a lot of time at your computers (work from home life) meaning your wrists are in constant flexion 

• The forearm muscles are often weak 

• There’s a lack of mobility and strength in other structures like the shoulders 

• You’re overusing the area, which can be a root cause of discomfort 

So, what can we do to help our wrist mobility and ease discomfort?

• Modify your positioning if the pain is constantly persisting

• If you get prolonged pain in between and post training sessions, try icing and gently massaging your forearms

• Try and do regular stretches which mobilise the fingers, wrists and shoulders. 

The best way to strengthen the wrists:

Work specifically on the mobility of the wrists by doing regular stretches that target the wrists, such as ‘Farmers Carries’, which will help improve grip strength as well as strengthening the wrists themselves. 

Hanging off a bar will also help to both improve and build strength. Check out my deadhang blog post for more information!

Other quick exercises to help strengthen the wrists:

• Palms to Sky and Palms to Floor

• Fist to Jazz Hand 

• Rotation (with light weights or a band)

• Supinated Wrist Curls (with light weights)

• Pronated Wrist Curls (with light weights) 

• Squeeze (putty or a soft ball).

Understanding the reasons behind wrist discomfort and following some of the exercises mentioned above will greatly improve your wrist mobility. Try practising each exercise every morning or evening and see how you get on! 

For more information regarding grip strength check out my blog post, which tells you all about it.