Wrist Problems, Wrist Solutions

Remember the job that I described in my blog post, "The Test"? Well, I jammed my right thumb when I dropped a pitchfork on it, causing it to swell for a few days. While the swelling went down, pain in my wrist didn't subside. Pronation and supination on my right hand has been a pain, say nothing of shoveling!

Sometimes, my family wonder why I read the same book or magazine thing over and over again. Even though I have a good memory, there are things that I will forget about. Small details that often times make all of the difference when I'm working out. One such piece of information that hit me was from "Never Gymless" by Ross Enamait. He relates in his book that hand/wrist injuries forced him out of the fight game but one thing that has helped him immensely was doing push-ups on his fists. He stated he's had no further problems with his wrists since.

This tidbit of information dovetailed in neatly with an article that I read in Fitness Rx where a report that strength training acutally helps joint pain rather than aggravating it. This to me is a no-brainer for the simple reason that I know that your bones sort of float on muscle tension. One muscle pulls one way, another pulls the opposite direction and the result of that pull is proper joint allignment. Still, reading it again was the refresher that I needed.

So, after a few days of doing push-ups on my fists (even doing handstand push-ups on my fists), I'm noticing less and less pain in my right wrists. I'm thankful for that since I'm getting people bugging me for a video of me doing handstand push-ups on T's (I'll get to that, believe me!). Obviously, I'm going to take the lesson of importance of taking care of my wrists to heart. Still, I think that there's something deeper that I've come to realize: There's something to be learned from anything, including the sources you already knew. Refreshers are never a bad thing.

Oh, if you plan on doing push-ups on your fists, make sure that you trim your nails!

Another, very simple idea came my way via Bodyweightculture.com that helped me out. So simple, in fact, that I wished that had thought of it myself. Instead of simply resting your weight on your palms while doing push-ups, push your fingers into the ground. This will take some of the pressure off your wrist, give you some strength training for your fingers, and I suspect that it would be a good way to progress to doing fingertip push-ups.