Old Exercises Rediscovered: Eugen Sandow Wrist Rotations

Another ticket for the time machine: here are Eugen Sandow’s wrist rotations, which the great man says do wonder for your forearms.

Back To Eugen

Demonstrating Eugen’s exercises so you can do his original workout plan (see here) recently took a backseat in the topics I covered in my state-of-the-art video productions.

So let’s get to it and check out another invention of his, the wrist rotation, which Eugen says trains the forearms and gives them mobility.

But before we get to the video I have to explain an adaption I had to make. In Eugen’s day, weights looked a bit different:

Eugen Sandow demonstrating his wrist rotations.

Can you see it? Eugen uses fixed-weight dumbbells with round balls as ends. They were the most common in his time. He wanted you to hold one of the balls in your palm and then do the movement.

The only place where today you find dumbbells like that is The Olde Victorian Novelty Shoppe. I decided to make do with what most of us have as part of our home workout equipment and demonstrate the exercise with holding plates:

Mr. Sandow Vs. Your Joints

I hinted at possible joint trouble in the video, but let me discuss it for a moment longer. Remember what I said about your shoulders when doing Eugen’s side dumbbell curls and his standing flyes?

Doing this exercise as he wants you to you can add the elbow joint to the list of sufferers. I tested these rotations with enough weight to be challenging and it felt like “another five minutes and I can rotate my forearms 360°.”