Dear Neesha,
Recently during and after yoga practice I have been experiencing wrist pain, especially during plank-chaturanga-upward dog series. Do you have any advice for preventing this pain?
Thank you and Namaste,
Bess M. from Atlanta, GA
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Dear Bess,
My first advice for you is to go back to basics of hand placement from any and all of our beginning classes. If your hands are out of alignment or you are not using balanced action then, your body tells you at some point, usually in the form of pain. Another possibility is that your shoulders are not in the most ideal alignment, which can also create pain in the wrists, but since I can not see you, I will address the hands instead.
Transitions are one of the more difficult places in life to maintain good alignment and stay rooted. I suspect that you could refine the placement of your hands and wrists, then work on holding that steady as you move from pose to pose.
The general guidelines are this:
1. Set the foundation:
- Make your wrist creases parallel to the front of your mat.
- Spread your fingers evenly
- Line the center of your wrist crease up to your outer shoulder
- Root all 4 corners of each hand down, starting with the index finger mound, inner hand, pinky finger mound then outer hand
2. Create balanced action:
- Claw the ground with muscle energy so that your finger pads root down
- Maintaining the foundation of all those points evenly rooting down, extend Organic Energy from the focal point (the heart in
……most of these poses), out through your fingers.
3. Maintain these placements and actions through transitions!!!
I hope that this helps your practice. I have found that in the many years that I have been teaching and practicing yoga, we think that we are doing this with their hands, and we are really not, because we need to build more self awareness. Use your gaze to see what your hands are doing, this will build more inner and outer awareness. Most people lose the inner hand rooting or their finger pads lift up when they transition which creates a lot of pressure in your little carpal bones in your wrist resulting in pain, or their hands are too narrow. Watch and see what happens to you!
Many blessings on your practice,
Neesha
Putting lots of weight on any joint when it’s at end-range is very hard on that joint. Unfortunately, putting weight on our wrists when they are hyperextended (as in plank, etc.) can actually sometimes lead to DeQuervain’s Tendonitis, due to the pinching caused on the thumb-side of the joint. Having previously had this injury, I now lean on my fists—wrists straight—whenever I can, to minimize aggravating it (though I find it still can be inflamed after some yoga sessions). Good luck!
Thank you Neesha – I too often have wrist pain during practice – this was very helpful. I though it may have just been “weak” wrists.
I hope that it is helping Tina… you probably do have weak wrists and hands and this will help strengthen them so that you can have more fun and less pain.
namaste!
Neesha
Excellent answer by Neesha, really helpful. Great addition by Sarah. Thank you.
My pleasure!
Neesha
another thought is that the capitate bone in the wrist can slip out of alignment, causing interference and pain in wrist extension. check for pain on the topside of the wrist with the wrist in extension, not weight bearing–press palms together, fingers skyward and gently lower heels of palms toward the floor, so that wrist extension increases.
Thanks Judy,
A chiropractor could bring that back into alignment right?
Neesha
I was having thumb problems not related to Yoga. But because of this I was not able to do Yoga for a while. While surfing the internet I came across Atlus fingerless gloves for Yoga, weightlifting etc. They are rubber so they help with the grip on the mat and are tight so they help support the hands. Who knew! Through a good Dr. and hand therapy my hands are much better and I don’t use the gloves now. But they helped me a lot.
Hi Sharon, it is good to hear that you found ways to clear your hand pain. The gloves provided support just like muscle energy does, so it seems that they would be good for the healing phase, before you are ready to build strength again. Thanks for putting your comment in, it is good to recognize all the resources out there.
Neesha