Repetitive Strain Injury Wrist
Hey everybody it’s Doctor Jo and cool cat Bear, and we’re going to show you some stretches and exercises for wrist tendonitis. So wrist tendonitis is a general term, so we’re just going to do some general stretches and exercises. So let’s get repetitive strain injury wrist started. To start off with some wrist range of motion type stretches exercises, start off with your elbow bent. Now you can put it on the table, you can rest it on something, you can just hold it up in the air, or you can just place it in your other hand.
So it just really depends on your comfort level, and you can also just prop it up on your leg as well, but what you’re going to do is just at your wrist, is make a fist with your hand and repetitive strain injury wrist go down as far as you comfortably can and then come up as far as you comfortably can. So again you don’t have to put it on anything you can just do it in the air, but you’re going to go down and that’s going to kind of stretch up here, and then come up and that’s going to stretch down there.
So with this one it’s really just getting that motion, it’s not necessarily a stretch yet, so you can just kind of go back and forth continuously, repetitive strain injury wrist but make sure it’s a nice smooth motion. If you want to pause for a second or two at each side you can. So after you go up and down or a flexion-extension, then you’re going to go side to side this way. So this is ulnar deviation, radial deviation. So now just going side to side. So you’re going to stretch it out this way. When you go here that ulnar side and then this way here that radial side.
So you can feel it all the way sometimes down into your thumb. So I’ll do a different angle. So you’re just going this way and then this way, but a lot of times it’s easy to prop it up on something and go back and forth. So with these, you can just do about ten maybe five each way, this is really just to get everything loosened up before you start stretching and exercising it. Then the next motions are going to be supination and pronation. With supination and pronation, I like having the elbow bent at your side, when people keep their arms straight and do supination and pronation, they’ve really been doing it shoulder versus at their wrists and their forearms. Bend your elbow, kind of keep it close to your side so you’re getting the movement here versus through the whole arm. You can open up your hand now and so going downwards this is pronation, and then coming up is supination like you’re holding a bowl of soup, that’s how I always remember it, and so again just this is for motion so you’re just moving it back and forth, another nice kind of smooth motion.
If you want to do a little pause each way you can, but that’s just really kind of to get everything loosened up and get it moving a little bit. So then you’re going to go into a stretch, actually stretching out those wrist flexors and extensors. So the best way to do that is to put your arm straight out. If you come down, you’re going to stretch the top here. If you keep your fingers open, that’s not quite as much of a stretch, but if you make a fist you’ll get even more of a stretch, and if you take your other hand and push it down even more you’ll feel a really really big stretch. Now this one is for stretch, so you’re going to hold it for 30 seconds, so you want it to be tense, slightly uncomfortable, but you don’t want it to be painful, and some people might feel it more here, but again with tendonitis if it’s wrist tendonitis all these muscles and tendons go all the way up to the elbows, so even though it’s wrist these are all connected here.
So you want to stretch everything out through here. Then after you do that for 30 seconds, then you’re going to go the other way. So it’s different when you go up and stretch these muscles under here, if you have your fists like this, then you’re just getting a little stretch, and if you want even more of a stretch you open up your hands, and if you want even more of a stretch than that, take your other hand and just pull those fingers back towards you and you’ll feel a nice stretch through here. So again holding that for 30 seconds and then you’re going to do it three times each way. I like to alternate back and forth just to give them a little break in between. if this is uncomfortable kind of bringing your hand over you can always place it on a wall, or you can even just, if you’re on the floor, place your hands on the floor and then lean forward. So see I’m getting that stretch through there going this way, so just placing your hands flat going in the other direction, or then putting the back of your hands down and then leaning back you’ll get a stretch that way as well.
So then you can do both if you want to so you can stretch it that way, or you can just use your hands to stretch it, so either way whichever one you’d like. So then the next one is just opening up your hand as big as you can, kind of getting everything stretched and opened up, and then just close everything into a fist, and you might hear some of my fingers popping a little bit, that’s okay that’s pretty normal, but again you’re just opening and closing this. So the tendons in the wrists in the hands are just kind of moving and gliding, and if I turn this way you should be able to see them as I open up, you see them this way, and then when I close them I stretch a little bit.
So just again this is just kind of a back and forth you don’t necessarily have to hold the stretch if you’re really just trying to get everything moving and opening it up a little bit, so this is a nice one to do. Then you’re going to go into some strengthening stuff once you get this the wrist loosened up and get it stretched out. So you can do this a couple of different ways, one is a ball squeeze. So you can take any kind of ball you want, this is racquetball. You can go lacrosse ball, a tennis ball, some people like the firmer balls like a lacrosse ball, and some people like a little more squishy like the racquetball or a tennis ball, but just place it in your hand and all you’re going to do
is just squeeze.
And with this one you’re going to hold for about three to five seconds, so nice big squeeze, hold it, you don’t have to squish the ball completely, but just so you’re getting that squeeze in there all the way around, squeeze and hold, and you should be able to feel all those muscles through the wrist and the forearm activating. So just probably three to five seconds doing that five times. If you don’t happen to have a ball handy, you can roll up a towel and do a towel squeeze, so the same kind of concept, just get your fingers all way around and squeeze as tight as you comfortably can and relax. Some people find that the towel is too squishy, and that’s okay, if it’s too squishy another easy and cheap alternative is a piece of a pool noodle. If you’ve seen some of my videos, you know that the pool noodles can be used in a whole bunch of different ways, but this is great because it’s a little squishier than some of the balls but it’s firmer than the towel, so you’re getting that kind of in-between, so again just spread your fingers out a little bit, squeeze hold it for about three to five seconds, and then relax.
So doing that five to ten times really just getting some strengthening in that area and then closing. Then you can go to having just a rubber band, nothing fancy about it it’s just a simple rubber band. Put it around all your fingers like that and your thumb, and then you’re just going to open it up as wide as you comfortably can.
Now if I go too much wider, the band’s going to roll down my fingers, so I don’t open it all the way up, but the key is to slowly come back in so you really want to make sure that you’re not just popping it back in, but you’re controlling that movement to get that strengthening and those fingers and that wrist area, so nice slow controlled and going out and in. So since these are smaller muscles, even though it’s just a rubber band, you don’t really want to do a whole lot of them, you just want to do about five or ten really just to get those little smaller muscles working.
So that does a great job as well, and then to do some more strengthening getting a little bit heavier with objects each time, you can just use either a soup vegetable can. If you happen to have a one-pound band, you can use a one-pound can, a one-pound weight, you can use that as well because this is about one pound. So again you can prop it up on something, people tend to like to do this especially if they’re really sore in that wrist, but just make sure that your wrist is hanging off the edge so you have that free movement to do that extension. If you feel pretty good, you can just hold it up in the air and do it this way as well, but again you want to do a nice smooth controlled motion going straight up and down, but if you feel like you’re getting a lot of movement then just prop it up on something, come all the way down that full-motion all the way down and that full-motion all the way up.
So again just starting off with ten of these, if that’s easy the 2 sets of 10, three sets of ten, two sets of fifteen, but if you get to do 20 – 25 and it’s pretty easy, then you can go up a little heavier on the weight. Then you’re going to turn your hand over and do the same motion, but now you’re getting those flexors, so just nice and slow coming down and then nice and slow coming up, so it doesn’t have to be a huge move, but really try and get that full motion of your wrists because if you’ve got some tendonitis in it you might only be able to do that, which is fine, but eventually hopefully you’ll get to go a little bit further because it’s okay if it’s uncomfortable, but you really don’t want it to be painful.
So that nice big movement in there and then for the radial deviation you can turn it this way and then drop it down and come up. I like it if I have a weight where I can hold it a little bit tighter I like having my thumb up on top when I do it, it’s a little harder to do it with a soup can because it’s bigger, but just make sure that you feel that you’re in a comfortable position, and so sometimes if my thumbs more on top going like this, it’s a little more comfortable because this gets a big stretch over that thumb area, but if not that’s okay, but I do prefer when I have weights to have that thumb up on top.
So just coming all the way down and coming all the way up, and then the last one is for the pronation supination with a little bit of weight. So you can use a hammer if you want to. A Hammer’s nice because it has a big weighted top so when you bring it back and forth, it gives that a little bit of extra pressure, but if you don’t have a hammer handy which you might not, you can take the weight or the soup can and hold it where most of it is up on top, repetitive strain injury wrist and then keeping that elbow by your side or just kind of over the table or over your leg, and then just roll over going into that supination, and then coming all the way back into that pronation, so when you have more of the weight up on top when it comes over, it’s just going to give you that extra stretch and that extra resistance where you have to bring it up and then come back the other way.
So if you even want to do it right here you can do it that way as well so that works pretty good, but if you want a nice solid handle you can use a hammer to go back and forth with that as well. so remember that with any kind of wrist exercises these are smaller muscles, so you don’t have to go overboard if you’re not feeling anything while you’re doing it, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not going to be sore or painful later, so start off with just a little bit, repetitive strain injury wrist and if you feel good the next day then you can start progressing up from there. So those are your stretches and exercises for
wrist tendonitis. Don’t forget to support our channel by clicking up here, and don’t forget to subscribe by clicking down here.
And remember be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon..
