Why do my wrists hurt when I do press ups?
The wrist is one of the most complex joints in the body and contains numerous joints that function together to move the hand. The wrist’s functions include:
Moving the hand back and forth and side to side
Transferring forces from the arm to the hand
Providing strength and flexibility to the hand
These functions depend on a complex structure of multiple bones, joints, and soft tissues—tendons, ligaments, nerves, and blood vessels.
Wrist pain during push ups is an all too common complaint. Patients come to us daily with this problem. Many believe the wrists are weak and always need strengthening, however this may not be the case. When attempting to strengthen the wrist we often over work the forearm causing elbow pain or forearm tightness which may contribute to more wrist pain. The vicious cycle continues. Immobility of the wrist is another key reason for wrist pain when doing press ups or planks. When we lack wrist mobility, we compensate, which eventually leads to elbow, shoulder and even neck pain!
The first thing to master is a proper push up form so that you can engage muscles effectively to prevent wrist and elbow issues.
Proper press up form
Your hands are your foundation. If you don’t have proper tension and placement there, nothing else will engage and work as efficiently. So, the first step in proper push up form is spreading your fingers and focusing on placing tension in your hands to slightly GRIP the ground as you set in that high plank, or top of push up position. For the standard push up, your hands will be right outside of your chest. A wide base of support allows you to create tension down into that ground and effectively PUSH THE GROUND AWAY as you press up. By paying attention to your hand set up and that grip on the floor, you can help prevent that overload.
Don’t shrug your shoulders. Slightly pull your shoulders blades in and down to engage around your shoulder blade.
Make sure your middle fingers are pointing straight ahead and your hands aren’t turning inwards. Then as you lower down, think about your upper arms creating an arrow shape with your body. You don’t want your elbows flaring out too much to create a “T” shape with your body. That is when you end to then place more strain on your wrists and elbows. A small angle away from your body is fine unless you are doing a narrow grip press up, in which case your arms will stay close to your torso. You also want to make sure the rest of your push up form is correct, keeping your head in line with your spine and a nice straight line from your head to your heels. Remember, the push up is basically a moving plank.
Top tips
Try stretching your wrist and forearms 30 sec x 5 before and after your press ups
Use DBs to do your press ups so that you weight bear through them instead of hands on the floor
You could do press ups on your knuckles to avoid excessive wrist extension
Try some gripping exercises- order a hand gripper and perform 3 x 10 once per day
See a physiotherapist to check there is no cyst causing impact in the wrist joint and causing pain
Book now with one of our senior sports physiotherapists
