How to get more wrist mobility

Tom Keifer moved us all with his his power ballad “you don’t know what you got til its gone” and when it comes to movement that is exactly right.

Most people do not realize how much they use a given body part until it is hurting or begins to limit them.

Have you ever broke your wrist? Do you currently suffer pain or discomfort in your wrist? Do you feel your wrist mobility is limiting from better results with your fitness routine?

In an age with a huge percentage of the population working with computers for the majority of the day, wrist flexibility limitations are becoming quite common. Why is this a problem?

First I want you to look at your wrist right now. Your wrist performs 4 key movements. Hold your arm in front of you. The first movement is flexion, or bringing the palm towards elbow. The opposing movement is extension, or bringing the knuckles toward the elbow. The third is radial deviation, which is bringing the thumb side of the hand towards the elbow. The forth is Ulnar deviation, or bringing the pinkie side of the hand towards the elbow.

So what happens when you are lacking a given range of motion? The simple answer is your entire arm’s ability to move will be compromised.

With this said, do you currently feel you are lacking typical range of motion in your wrist? Here is a simple test.

This test will take you 20 seconds to do. Hold your arm at the side of your body, thumb up. It would be the same position as if you were doing a hammer curl. Now test these four ranges of motion.

Flexion: bend your wrist and bring your palm towards your body. A typical range of motion is a near 90 degree bend at the wrist with no flexion of the fingers.

Extension: bend your wrist and bring your knucles towards your shoulder. Once again typical range of motion is 90 degrees of extension without excessive flexion in the fingers.

Radial deviation: bend your wrist and bring your thumb towards your shoulder. The accepted standard range of motion is between 25-30 degrees.

Ulnar deviation: bend your wrist and bring your pinkie towards your hip. The accepted standard range of motion is 20 degrees.

Now that you have examined your wrist, what movements do you currently find you are limited from your wrists range of motion? For many people a limited extension is the common problem. Lacking extension will negatively impact all of your pressing movements, from push ups to barbell pressing.

A simple question to ask is this; is there a position I am unable to get in because of stiffness in the wrist? If so, do you note you have a limited range of motion?

What if you noticed you have an unusually large range of motion in one of the movements? Is it possible to have too much wrist flexibility?

Yes and no. Some people are born with exceptional mobility in their body, or perhaps a specific joint. If you find you posse exceptional range of motion in your wrist than stretching is not required. If you do stretch the joint excessively you risk destabilizing the joint and connective tissues which will bring a host of more substantial problems. If you currently have concerns over your wrist range of motion I recommend consulting your primary health care provider and getting a professional opinion.

“So how do I change this?”

I realized I could give you a few stretches, but that is so boring. Here is something that will add mass to your arms, increase your wrist mobility, and dramatically improve your grip strength. These two movements come to us from a classic feat of strength popular with old time circus strongmen performers.

Plate Pinch Reverse Curls: This movement develops strength in the wrist extension pattern while training the various flexion tissues of both the upper and lower arm.

Starting position, you will not need much weight for this one

Grasp a plate by the edge with a pinch grip. Your fingers are one side, your thumb is on the other. For most women two five pound plates will be an excellent starting point, for most men a 10 and a 5 pound plate will work.

Pronate your palm so your knuckles are up.

Now curl the hand towards the shoulder. You will want to initiate this movement by first extending the wrist.

The pinch grip will be very taxing on the thumb; make sure you clamp down on the plates tightly.

Once your arm moves through the full range of motion, lower the arm down to the side of the body and begin your next rep.

Perform reps until you slow down or experience excessive tension in your arm. Do not force the movement.

Top ROM, resist flexion at the top of the movement in the wrist. If you are unable to prevent the wrist from flexing then drop the weight down.

Towel pull downs for radial/ulnar deviation.

You will need either a pull up bar or a cable pull down machine and two small towels or ropes for this next movement.

Pull ups and pull downs are key movements for healthy shoulders and a strong upper back. We can take advantage of this power movement to build stronger hands and healthy range of motion in the wrist with two simple variations.

First roll the towel up length wise and toss it over the bar.

Now you will be using two different grips. One of the grips will be grasping the towels with the thumbs touching the towel. In order to pull you will have to ulnar deviate for the movement. This is stretching the tissue for the radial deviation and building strength in the ulnar plane.

The second grip is having the pinkie side of the hand up when you grasp the towels. For a successful rep you will need to radial deviate strongly. As in the above example, one movement strengthens a given plane while stretching the other.

All other standards for a pull up or pull down apply.

Lead the pull with the elbow, bring the hands towards the chest and move in to shoulder extension.

The strongest pull will be linear to the bar/ or cable to the chest.

Perform reps as quickly as you safely can, stop before you slow down or experience excessive tension.

Invest in these two movements and you will quickly gain additional wrist flexibility and greater strength and muscle tone.

NOTE: This was an article I wrote recently for a magazine which was chopped down. Being particularly lazy today I decided to post the full story.