Thread: Wrist pain

Are you performing barbell curls? If so, switch to dumbells or the EZ-curl bar.

What distance of grip are you using? I go shoulder or a tad wider.

I can not use straight bars for curls.......If I absolutely have to, I will BUT IT HURTS MINE TOO....HURTS LIKE HELL.........I know where you're coming from though. The EZ bar hurts mine also....I have to use free weights.

The ONLY time I'll use the straight bar is when I do a set of 21.......7 all the way up.....7 waist line and up then 7 chest line and up......OUCH

Originally posted by BabsieGirl
I have to use free weights.

Barbells and EZ curl bars are freeweights, perhaps you mean dumbells

hMMMM....okay..now I'm confused because I was told the sguiggly BAR..was an EZ curl bar.

The bar I'm talking about that hurts and I was referring to as Ez Curl Bar........is, for the most part straight...not quite as long as a straight bar, half that size. It has come curves on it.

I don't know what I was thinking.....it is free weight....

Squigly bar is an EZ curl bar yes, there is also a cambered bar although that is full length.

If you use the outside grip on the EZ bar it does not hurt my wrists, but I know that alot of women seem to have wrist issues.

I wonder why that is?

Not a woman but I have genetically weak wrists and it kills when I try to do a barbell curl, I have tried an EZ bar as well and that hurt too. Dumbbells hurt less but I still can't get the max weight out of my bicep curls cause my wrists keep giving out

you need to build up your forearm strength.

I'm 6'2" and my wrists are only 7.5" around or so, which isn't that beefy.

I use the EZ curl bar also, but sometimes, there are days that my wrists hurts too much and I use the Hammer Strength plate-loaded seated bicep machine instead. I feel fortunate to have this in my gym and it gives me a good alternative on days that my wrists just hurts too much. Another alternative that I use is a preacher curl bench using a pair of 35-45 lb dumbells. I think it isolates the bicepts real well. I think another thing is technique as to how you situate your wrist when performing a curl. That's important as well and if done the wrong way can cause the wrists to hurt as well. I have seen so many people just do it the wrong way. Lastly, I've been taking this thing called Joint Soother, it contains glucosamine, chondroitin, and MSM. A trainer recommended this to me and it has helped greatly because the joints on my lower extremities started to hurt a little after doing some really heavy leg pressing. I got that at Vitamin World. Just my 2 cent on the subject.

Mine hurt all the time whem I do any bicep work except hammers. I use wrist straps and tie them tight and I can't feel any pain.

IMO barbells and ez curls bars aren't free weights- I had to had to pay good money for mine.

If your wrists hurt you probably need to strengthen them. I suggest both forward and reverse grip wrist curls.

You can also try stretching exercises to loosen up, i do them when my wist begin to hurt while on the computer.

Thanks, I'll try the stretching and strengthening my wrists, also I think if my wrists start to hurt again I'll try only doing hammer curls, they're not as painful

Nanook ... in the past I've had the same problem with my wrists. I was a bit surprised to see so many others describing this problem, so we are not alone.

I am double jointed in my elbows, so the e-z curl bar and preacher curls hurt even worse then using a straight bar. What I did was to start doing dumbbell curls exclusively. They allow your wrist to rotate in a naturally comfortable position. This is why the hammer curls don't hurt because the pressure on your wrist is minimized. Once the original pain stops, SLOWLY re-introduce straight bar curls using light weight and higher reps (like 10-12). Once you feel comfortable doing straight bars again, I suggest never going below 8 reps, as going real heavy may re-injure your wrists. The wrist wraps that use velcro really helped me also...

I agree with Vanity... If your wrists give you problems, the best bet more than likely is to strengthen them. If you've always had wrist problems you may want to have a doctor check them out too. Otherwise, work your upper and lower wrists.

I've always had bad wrists and I did just that. Since then they have been much stronger. I still run into problems from time to time and then do a combination of things, either lighten my weights, wear my wrist straps, or widen the grip as I believe Mudge mentioned.

One thing though, it does really suck when you have a problem with one of your body parts that prevent you from achieving your full workout potential. You always are striving to give it your all and something always seems to come along and slow you down

Nanook,

How long have you been working out? If it hasn't been long, you may have to lay off anything that causes the pain for a week or so, and start back. Sometimes the body needs time to heal and adapt to what you are doing, or you could try the wrist curls, or squeezing a ball. There always seems to be some kind of exercise that will help.
One time my shoulder was hurting badly, and needed to do some hand sanding on a truck I was going to paint, must of sanded for at least an hour, shoulder quit hurting and never bothered me again.
Another example- right elbow problems really painful and got to the point I couldn't straiten it out completely. Got a climbing rope, which I thought would irritate it more, but it's making it better!
Might want to try working your arms by doing chin ups and seeing if this doesn't help your wrists, you'll be working your arms too, but not as directly.


Keep us posted.

yeah, I went back to the gym today and only used dumbells and a little less weight this time. It didn't hurt. The only time it did hurt was when I was trying to do the wrist curls so I'm gonna lower the weight a little more and take it a little slower so as to ensure I do not hurt anything else. Thanks for all the advice.

Jim had a good point as well. If the things that were mentioned don't help, the last resort is to lay off for awhile. Now if lowering the weight doesn't help, try another excercise that may work the same muscle that might not hurt your wrists. Sometimes you run into a selective few that you just have to avoid.

I know for me, due to my bad wrists I have to avoid the reverse grip excercises. They seem to inflict the most pain to my wrists.

Work out your wrists more. I used to have the same problem(especially with the EZ curl) until my wrists got stronger.

Yes Darkkmind, that really helped mine. Plus when your doing heavy benches it is like mandatory to have strong wrists.

I knew someone once who had their wrists buckle on them during a heavy bench session... They were lucky the spotter was there to help. It can be very dangerous when you have 300 plus pounds sitting on your neck.

use wrist wraps they work great for cutting down the pain. You might be stressing the wrist to much which really doesn't have to do with strength, you just might be having your wrist set right when you curl which cause some pain. Wrist warp make you keep form and cut down on the pain.

I use wrist straps as well, but in addition you want to make sure you work your wrists. Strong wrists prevent injury and pain in my experience anyway. Proper grip and wrist position is a given.

I used to be able to do straight bars until I started to box, after tweeking my wrist a couple of times I have to use ez curl bars. Grrr, I wish I could normal, oh well I guess I will starting working out wrist I always assumed it was joint pain, because it hurt afterwards, and hurts if I rotate my wrist in a 360 degree circle.

Golden,

You may want to have your wrist checked out by a doctor.
Working the wrist with an injury could cause perminent damage.
But usually one can judge for himself as whether that is the case.
Just be careful.

I recently broke my wrist during football, and I was having the same problem. All I did was wrist excercises and supplemented with a Glucosamine Chondroitin MSM complex. After a few weeks my wrists felt alot better, and I was able to lift with more intensity.

Goodluck