How to protect your wrists during yoga
Namaste beautiful!
Are your wrists also needing more care and attention? Mine for sure do. Arthritis can affect us all in different places, at different pain levels, and my wrists tend to be the area that flares the most for me, and even with no flares, I still experience pain there if I am not careful.
In this post, I wanted to share some of my tips on how you can protect your wrists during yoga.
Let’s get right into it.
- Hands Free Yoga
Truly acknowledge that if your wrists need some extra love and care then it’s completely fine to avoid using your wrists all together. You actually can do a hands free or wrist friendly yoga that doesn’t even involve putting any pressure or any weight on your wrists. I have done a few of these fun safe classes, which are now all part of the membership area for members to redo as often as they like. I think they’re pretty fun and playful. Finding ways of getting up off the floor without actually putting any pressure on your hands definitely put some smiles on peoples faces. - Warm UpÂ
Do this before you start putting any pressure on your wrists, to bring some heat, oil them up preparing them for movement and pressure. I did a very quick wrist warm up video for you. Check it out here. - Starfish fingers
Rather than having your fingers closed together, open them up into a starfish. Gripping the mat ever so slightly with your fingers, helping you distribute the weight more evenly. Try to actively press, remember actively, your body weight pressure into your fingers & palm of the hand rather than collapsing directly into your wrist joint. If your fingers are flaring then this might not be a good option for you, in which case I would truly advise just finding a gentle wrist and finger warm up video, and then doing only a few postures where the weight is on the hands and the fingers. - Weight into the palm
Following on from the above tip, but as it is such an important one I wanted to include it additionally. Actively pressing your weight into your fingers and your palm, rather than collapsing onto the wrist joint area, you make sure you are pressing your weight down into your fingers and into your palm helping the weight distribution, and allowing the muscles to do more work rather than the joint taking all the weight. - Towel Roll
Grab a towel and create a roll that is shoulder width apart long. Place this roll on your mat so when you place your hands there, remember that you aren’t grabbing the towel, that is not what it is for. Place your hand on the towel, the area, exactly where the wrist joins and the palm starts. Having a smaller towel roll is better so that it is not too high up. From here you are pressing the fingers and the palm downwards, creating a much smaller arch in your wrist joint helping you to easier distribute the weight to the front of your fingers and palms rather than having a sharp edge where all of the weight is then held up by just your joint. Remember our joints are not meant to be holding any weight, That is what the muscles are for. - GlovesÂ
If you can spend some money, get some gloves. Now I have bought these gloves myself, I wasn’t sponsored, no one paid me to include them in this post. However, I bought these gloves from the company called ‘wags’ and I really like them. I’ve used them for the last few months and I’ve come to the conclusion that I do actually really like them. They have this cushion inside, which is in the shape of a wedge which sort of replicates what the towel would do for us, which helps to distribute the weight more evenly. Providing some extra support. They are a little bit pricey in comparison to the others you can find on the market and to be honest, I haven’t tried any others so if you did and you found that they worked really well for you then please share. It’s nice to share our experiences and hear what helps you.Â
I hope that with these 6 tips you can find some that will help you take better care of your wrists while practicing yoga or even any other form of exercise. If there is anything you would like to add, or ask me then please feel free to send me a message.Â
We can all learn from each other and from our experiences.Â
Check out the wrist warm up yoga video.
Namaste
Do you also think you have to be flexible to do yoga? Check my myth bust over here.
