Lifting weights is a great way to firm, tone and bulk up your muscles. Some people also use weights for various cardio workouts. It’s common knowledge that using a weight lifting belt will help protect your lower back and stomach from pulled muscles and strain while lifting. But what can you do to help protect your wrists? Wrists are a fragile part of the body that contain many small bones, lifting a bar with a great deal of weight on it can cause strain and damage to the wrist that may keep you from lifting for a while.
Start Slow
Wrist Wraps
Start Slow
Never just grab a bar and start lifting a large amount of weight. Start slow, build your strength, and allow your wrist and other joints to adjust to your weightlifting routine. Warm up your wrists just as you do other joints and muscles in your body. Stretch and rotate to loosen up your wrists before you begin lifting. Warming up is a part of fitness, don’t forget the areas that you don’t typically think of as muscles. Even fingers can get strained and damaged by weight lifting.
Wrist Training
To avoid carpal tunnel or other wrist injuries, use grip exercises and wrist curls to increase flexibility and strengthen your hands and forearms. Wrist training techniques such as stress balls, and grip devices will help prepare you for weightlifting. The more prepared your hands and forearms are for weightlifting, the less strain you’ll put on your wrists.
Wrist Wraps
Reinforcing and supportive wrist wraps help to absorb some of the stress put on your wrists while weightlifting. There are a variety of wrist wraps available but even using weightlifting tape to wrap your wrists is better than nothing. Shop around and find the wrist wrap that meets your needs. Keep in mind that the base of the thumb is also an area that can be injured by repetitive stress motions and look for a wrist wrap that provides support there as well.
If you do experience a wrist injury, make sure you allow plenty of time for recovery before you begin lifting again. While you heal, take advantage of physical therapy exercises to make sure your wrist is in top condition before you put it under the strain of weightlifting.
Before beginning weight training, it is important that you know all the possible dangers and take steps to protect yourself from injury, strain, and pain. One small injury, such as a wrist strain can keep you off the weights for up to 6 months depending on the severity. Starting slow, wrist training and wrist wraps are all ways that can help keep you on the path to weight lifting success.