Wrist Exercises: Stretching and Mobilizing Matters!

Wrist mobility exercises and stretches are an important tool for anyone who is into bodyweight training, hand balancing, or, of course, Animal Flow. This week’s video was inspired from a recent experience in my own personal journey. It’s fair to say that if you plan on dedicating yourself to practicing bodyweight training, you will be spending a fair amount of time on your hands. Add in some Animal Flow and some Hand Balancing and your hands will get to know the ground very well. But, while all of these practices are excellent for strengthening the wrists and hands, you also run the risk of exposing yourself to over-use injuries. This is exactly what happened to me last month…

Why Should You Do Wrist Mobility Exercises?

We recently began production on our upcoming DVD on Hand Balancing, so I’ve been spending a lot of time practicing my balances and learning new skills on the ground.

Even with my experience as a medical exercise specialist and knowing the importance of proper programming, I failed to compensate for the increased amount of time on my hands by incorporating an aggressive “pre hab” strategy. What I ended up with was some acute aches and pains in my wrists.
You see, the wrists are a complex joint full of bone, ligaments, connective tissue, muscles and nerves. They weren’t specifically designed to take the entire weight of our bodies for extended periods of time. However, if properly trained, they will adapt enough to pull off some pretty impressive hand balances. But, they have to be trained.

Eight Wrist Mobility Exercises

So, this week’s video tutorial is all about wrist mobility stretches and exercises! The goal of mobility work is to actively increase the range of motion at a joint while increasing the extensibility of the involved tissue, as well as increasing temperature and lubrication. In this week’s tutorial, I’ll show you eight mobility exercises that will seriously prepare your wrists for any workout. These include:

Incorporating Wrist Mobility Work

These exercises should be done before and after any hand balancing or Animal Flow practice, or regular resistance training. They can also be useful to provide some relief between sets in the middle of your practice. I even recommend it if you’re spending extended periods of time typing on a computer. Even just dedicating five minutes as part of your warm up and another five minutes as part of your cool down can make a world of difference. Remember, the goal is to train to last, and you’ll be missing out on serious training time if you’re taking time off for injuries. If you can, I recommend getting into the habit of doing them throughout the day!