Relieve Stressed Wrists with Strength

Wrist pain is common among for anyone using a computer. One way to help prevent the pain is to take the time to notice. Small things, like how you hold your wrist at the keyboard and your mouse, can be adding to your discomfort. Any joint likes to stay in a more neutral position when it is working. When your hands are at a keyboard your wrists are at an uncomfortable angle. The pinkie side (ulnar) of the wrist gets squeezed, which is a normal motion. However, once you begin to type you start to use muscles that are in a weaker position, putting stress on the wrist. Few other activities cause us to work to the outside edge of the wrist like this so the muscles resist.

How do you change this? Try bringing the elbows in a little closer to the ribs. This decreases the angle at the wrist. Now, adjust the curve of your finger. The pinkie curls more and the index finger is hardly curled. See if the combination of these 2 adjustments bring your wrists almost to neutral. It will take a little practice but your wrists will thank you for noticing and taking time to adjust. Adjustments do not have to be big to have an impact. If you ever had a small pebble in your sandal you know the tiny irritation brings more pain over time. Taking a moment to make that little change is such a relief.

Even with a good position you should move your wrists around when you take a break in typing. While you are reading over what you wrote circle your wrists around. Pay attention to the pinkie side of the wrist and move in and out of neutral. Your wrists get tired even in a good position.

The other issue with the wrists is crushing the palm side of the wrist. There is not a lot of space in the wrist. The bones of the wrist are also very mobile, to allow the wrist to move in many ways. Just like with the side to side movement of the wrist, the strongest position is neutral. Stretching the wrist by moving the hand up and down with the forearm still is not a stressful movement. The problem starts once you try and keep the wrist in either position. You have now decreased the space in the wrist joint for the nerves and blood vessels. This is what causes the pain that moves up the arm known as carpal tunnel syndrome.

Hovering your wrist above the keyboard is best. Having a support to hold the wrist higher can work but often we get lazy and can crush the wrist anyway. Positioning for using the mouse is the same idea, no crushing of the wrist on the sides, bottom or top. Even in the picture above, just lifting the forearm a little more will take that little bend out of the wrist. If you are mousing a lot you can vary what fingers you use. Using the middle finger and the ring finger to click the mouse varies the muscles used.

Strengthening the wrist makes it easier to hold a neutral position. Here is a simple strengthening move to get the wrist muscles working. Bring the tips of the fingers together and press only the tips of the fingers into each other. Notice that you can not move your wrists easily in this position. The muscles are working so they come to neutral. Too much pressure and your fingers will collapse, do be gentle. This is simple and can be done throughout the day while you are proofreading or on the phone or reading emails. You only need to hold it for 20 -30 seconds once or twice to get the effect. More important is to move the wrist several times a day.

The biggest take away is that if you are using the joint you want it in a strong position. The strongest position for the wrist is neutral, side-to-side, and up-and-down.
Give your wrist range of motion breaks when you stop typing.
Strengthen the muscles of the wrist using the fingertip pressing action.

I share more tips about the wrist in my wrist course available in Member Vault. There will be other practices you can try out and see which one feels like the best movements for your wrists.

Photo by Markus-spiske on unsplash