Dear Ralph: Pains in my wrist

  Dear Raphael,
            I have a little problem in my workout, hope I can still write about exercising problems on this blog. Anyway I usually do about 20 - 30 push-ups every single morning. At least since last month. But recently I have noticed a problem in my wrist. The pain gets so unbearable and then I have to stop. This is the only exercise I can afford to do for now since I have to money to buy any gym equipment I don't know if I should stop the exercise for now and just allow the wrist to heal or what. The pain is more of a bone pain than a muscle pain. It's as if my wrist is about to break then I just have to give in and stop the exercise. Is there any advice you can offer for this? Thanks

                                                                                                                                                       Tunde,







Dear Tunde,
          This is a really common problem for those that do push ups. No matter how perfect your form is at a point you would notice these pains. But I might have some suggestions for you.

First of all I would like you to please check with a doctor. Find out if there is anything more serious to the pain you are feeling. Let the doctor tell you if it is safe to keep doing the exercise. Injuries from exercises can be really serious so please be careful. Only after you check with your doctor, then you can check the points I have below to know if any of them can help you through the pain.

Instead of going like 20 or 30 reps at once. Why not break that down into fewer reps and then increase the rounds that you do. That would help you to reduce the strain you place on the hand under one round. You also get to have some rest in between rounds for your hand to heal before you continue the exercise. It is just as effective so don't feel that dropping your reps is going to mean that you won't see similar results.

Also you can try this push up aid that people use now. During a traditional push-up your palms are spread flat on the floor and due to the weight you put on your wrist, the wrist joint is then affected and that is what causes the pain. The position of your wrist is not the natural position that it is used to and the pressure becomes too much for it. So you can try to get this push-up aid in the pic below. By gripping onto that you realign your wrist to the correct position. And if you are unable to get the push-up aid then try doing the knuckle push-ups for now. The knuckle push-up is the one you form a fist and use it as support instead of using your palm directly on the floor. And if your with the knuckle position is the pain to your knuckles then put something soft under your fist when doing it, like a rubber slippers. Look at the pic of the aid below to understand better.

Do you see how it re-positions he's wrist bone and you can tell that most of the weight is no more pressing on the wrist, instead it is rested on the aid. But still you can get in good result while using this.