Fixing Your Achy Wrists

Do you experience pain in your wrists while doing exercises like bench presses or planks? If so, then read on!

As I've mentioned 1,000 times (and you're probably sick of me saying it already), we always have to look distally (farther away) from the area in question. Think of your entire arms as a train. If the shoulder isn't working properly, you bet that you're gonna have elbow and wrist problems too. Take a look at the photo on the right from Thomas Myers' Anatomy Trains. You can see here that the pecs of the chest will influence the structures all of the way down to the fingers.

The number one complaint I hear from clients when doing the front squat is that their wrists hurt them. While the wrist pain is the symptom, the cause typically arises with poor shoulder mobility. If your front rack position is sub-par, your wrists now have to bear the brunt of that load. The lower your elbows are, the more wrist extension you need to compensate. In this instance, you need to work on opening up the pecs and lats to ease the stress on your wrists.

Because of this horrendous shoulder mobility, his wrists suffer.

I see similar problems arise in pressing movements. In the bench press or the overhead press, clients occasionally lack the necessary strength in their forearm flexors, so they fall into a hyperextended wrist position throughout the lift. A more "neutral" wrist position can save them a lot of discomfort. In these cases, the problem might not be mobility, but grip strength. I would have these people do exercises like hangs from the pull-up bar, plate pinches, or farmer walks to combat this. Sometimes, cueing alone can also go a long way to correct this issue.

This image from Liftbigeatbig explains different wrist positions. We never
want significant extension in pressing movements.

Ultimately, if you feel pain in your wrists you have to check out how your shoulders are moving to properly assess the issue. Shoulder instability can manifest itself in a variety of different ways. Continuing to address your wrist alone will have little to no effect. I see a lot of people working to stretch their forearms to alleviate wrist pain, but rarely do they address other possible contributing factors like shoulder stability or grip strength. Global corrections will stimulate an entire chain reaction of positive effects.

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Try this Hack to Get Bigger

While I've previously explained that stretching seldom helps improve your flexibility in the long term, there are some benefits that come from stretching. This exciting study from 2015 done by Miranda et. al. tested stretching as a means for increasing training volume (the number of repetitions performed in a set or session) in the wide-grip seated row exercise. There were two groups of participants, both of whom performed three sets to failure with two minutes of rest in between sets. The only difference between the groups was that the experimental group performed 40 seconds of a passive pectoralis major stretch at the end of their allotted rest periods. The idea here was to stretch the antagonist (opposing) muscles.

What the experimenters found was fascinating: there was a statistically significant difference in the antagonist stretching group. Those participants performed more repetitions in all three sets. Additionally, the experimental group demonstrated greater contractions in the latissimus dorsi and the biceps brachii muscles.

 

While this particular study only tested one exercise, it is likely that we can utilize this concept with other movements to reap similar benefits. For instance, in doing a bench press, you could stretch the latissimus dorsi. Before your set of leg curls, stretch out your quadriceps. You get the idea. This hack can help you get more training volume, which will ultimately result in greater hypertrophy (muscle growth)!

The mechanisms behind these findings are still unclear. My guess would be that stretching the antagonist muscles would allow for greater range of motion throughout the exercise, and thus, a stronger contraction in the agonist muscles. For example, the pecs have to stretch during the top of the rowing exercise. A bigger stretch in the pecs could possibly allow for the lats to generate a stronger contraction.

Static stretching before a set may be disadvantageous for power production, and thus, I do not prescribe it before movements like the clean and jerk. However, in a bodybuilding routine, there may be some added bonuses to stretching during rest periods to accumulate more total training volume.
This concept has not yet been applied to strength-based movements, but it could be an interesting point for experimentation on your own before the big lifts. Give this trick a try and see how you like it!

Works Cited:

1. Miranda, Humberto, et al. "Acute effects of antagonist static stretching in the inter-set rest period on repetition performance and muscle activation." Research in Sports Medicine 23.1 (2015): 37-50.

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