In my clinical experience with patient outside of sports, I have noticed that it’s the office workers who suffer the most from wrist pains and numbness. The problem we’re talking about is not solely connected to strength sports. The wrist isthmus syndrome is a pathology with aspects of: strain, pressure, increased tension within the wrist and long-term improper positioning.
It is a fact though, that the main reason for pains inside and outside the wrist is compression of the central nerve, right under the lateral ligament of the wrist.
Symptoms?
Numbness of fingers, impossibility to keep the wrist straight, pain during heavy-weight exercises. The often need to “shake off” the wrists, a feeling of discomfort. These are the typical symptoms, usually of the radiating nature, with feeling of pins and needles, which is the main difference between problems of compression and problems with movement apparatus.

STRENGHT SPORTS

The problem of the wrist canal is very common here and bodybuilders and armwrestlers are very exposed to that risk. There are three indirect factors of this ailment.

1.Overstraining
Appears mainly during exercises that largely overload the wrists. In this situation, injury happens not only to the nerves surrounding the wrist, but also other movement apparatus elements. What I mean by this is tendons of flexor muscles, and also rectifiers. The risk of problems is increased with some exercises, which need to be performed carefully to benefit from them fully. One must also keep in mind that the human body is a functional system, with all its parts interconnected. If the nerve structure is hurt, the other structures will follow, sooner or later. Let’s look at the excercises that especially strain the wrist

Close grip curls on horizontal bench. A common exercise, used mostly for shaping triceps. Everything here depends on technique, but I’ve seen only a few people do this properly. The most common mistakes are too close grip and pumping the bar from chest level after the negative phase. This usually happens because the weight is too large, and we have to use the momentum to pump it back up. The problem is that the wrist adduction is too big here. Additionally, performing this exercise with our elbows close to our body to minimize the back muscles work, we lower the bar too low, which causes the wrist to overgrow. Putting the wrist in the lower position (bar close to chest) generates a huge strain on the tendon-ligament structure. This positioning also causes a strain in the structures inside the wrist channel. This compresses the joint disk between the elbow bone and the first wrist row, and causes to strain the central nerve under the lateral wrist ligament

Close grip bar raises (to chin). Another exercise that requires perfect technique. Here the adduction of the wrist is similar as in the previous exercise, but the bar is driven along the body toward the chin, which, when improperly executed, leads to strong palm-wise bend in the wrist. When properly executed, bending and adduction happen only minimally. During this exercise, the structures inside the wrist canal are strongly affected, tendons effect pressure on nerve structures.

Reverse wrist curls with bar. A popular forearm exercise. A must for people with weak wrists, but also the hardest to perform. Causes stretching but also compression of joint and nerve structures. A good exercise to strengthen the wrist, not the grip. Perform with small weights and limited  range of movement. If you really want to hit the forearm, use machines that dose weights for every finger – you’ll get a more powerful grip and minimize the risk of injury.
Sparring. In this case, wrist strain is unavoidable. In bodybuilding we can just plan a different exercise, but in an arm fight it’s impossible to spare the wrist.

Therapy and rehabilitation is necessary. For more info, read on in the second part of the article.

Tomasz Kopeć, MA