Lifting Weights With Weak Wrists

Do your wrists give in before your muscles do? Here is the cheap solution to this dreadful problem!

The Weak Wrists Problem

I first encountered problems with my wrists when doing dumbbell lunges. Lunges, being a leg exercise, need serious weight to work and the burden has to be carried by your hands.

Back when I started exercising at home, it wasn’t too much of a roadblock. But the bigger the dumbbells became, the more my right hand and wrist demanded attention.

Somewhere around handling 2×30 kg (70 lbs) I had to stop doing a set of lunges, as my right fingers sent a threatening message to brain HQ: you now have the chance to set the weight down nice, go on and we’ll drop it.

I heeded the notion, but it didn’t end the trouble. The pain in my wrist became a companion even in day-to-day life. After a visit to my doctor and later a specialist I knew I had tendosynovitis – an inflammation of the tendons in the wrist.

It wasn’t actually the weightlifting that had caused it, that may have only put it over the top. It was years of using a mouse and typing on a keyboard.

Another apt name for tendosynovitis is “typewriter’s neuritis.” I wonder how many secretaries who had to type on tough mechanical typewriters suffered from it.

The Solution

After getting enough rest, the inflammation calmed down, but I was still careful with how I treated my wrist. To my aid when weightlifting came the cheap little helpers I’ll introduce you to in this video:

Not Really For Beginners?

As I mentioned in the video, if you are a beginner and don’t have pressing need to use these straps (such as an existing condition in your wrist), don’t use them.

If you do, you don’t give your fingers and forearms a chance to grow with their tasks. The fingers get their grip power from muscles in your forearms and letting them hold the weights unaided gives you a forearm training on the side.

Picture courtesy of “croftoncrossfit“.