Wrist sprains are a common injury that results from falling on an out stretched hand (source). They can make all upper extremity exercise difficult due to pain and loss of motion. I’ll show you the best exercises to treat a wrist sprain below. To understand wrist anatomy and function, start here.
What Are The Best Exercises To Treat A Wrist Sprain?
A sprained wrist is fixed by loading the wrist in all motions to restore strength and function. The movements are as follows:
- Wrist flexion and extension
- Pronation and supination
- Radial and ulnar deviation
- Isometric load
Wrist Flexion and Extension For A Wrist Sprain
- Both of these movements load the medial elbow in a lengthened and shortened position
- Perform 3×12
- Repeat 3x a week
- Progress by adding reps before adding weight
Pronation And Supination For A Sprained Wrist
- These movements also load the medial elbow in a lengthened and shortened position
- These are performed for time instead of reps
- 3 sets of 45 seconds. This should be difficult; it should be hard to reach 45 seconds
- Repeat 3x a week
Radial and Ulnar Deviation
- These movements load the medial elbow in a lengthened and shortened position (notice a trend?)
- These are performed for time
- 3 sets of 45 seconds. This should be difficult; it should be hard to reach 45 seconds
- Perform 3x a week
Isometric Load
The function of isometric load is going to be to restore the load tolerance of the wrist. The following video has progressions to add or decrease load pending what YOU can tolerate. For this we will not be doing pushups however
- Pick the position that you can tolerate below
- Go into a pushup position and stay there
- Hold the position for 30 seconds
- Complete 3 sets per day, 3x per week
- The goal is to progress to not needing an equipment to make the position more tolerable
The elbow and the wrist work in extreme unison. Fixing one will fix the other and vice versa. As such, you can rehab the wrist the same you would rehab the elbow. We have a full program below