6 must do exercises to prepare your wrists for Handstands

We’ve designed this sequence of wrist drills to warm up and strengthen your wrists. They are also a must before any handstand, arm balancing and crawling workouts. The more time you invest in preparing and strengthening your wrists, the more time you will be able to spend practising your handstands, and the better you will get at balancing on your hands. If you have any pain or inflammation, please talk to your doctor before diving into this. But for now, we’re going to assume that you are strong and healthy, so let’s get started.

The Drill

1. Start on all fours with most of your weight in your legs. Place your hands palm down under your shoulders and gently rock your weight forwards and back. Start gently here, but over time the aim is to take more weight through your wrists and increase the distance that you can take the shoulders forwards over your fingertips.
2. Then turn your hands so your fingers point out sideways and sway your shoulders from side to side so that you can put more weight through one hand at a time.
3. With your palms still face down, rotate your hands outwards, so your thumbs point out sideways and your fingers point towards your knees. Gently move your weight forwards and back, while pushing your palms down into the ground. The aim is to take more weight back toward the heels.
4. Next turn your hands over, so the backs of your hands are on the ground with your fingers pointing towards each other.  Bend your elbows out sideways if you need to, this will reduce the pressure on your wrists. Gently shift your weight from side to side. Go to that point where you can feel it but just before it gets too painful.
5. Then finally, rotate your arms inwards, aiming to get your two  little fingers to touch side by side, with the fingers pointing towards the knees. Rock your way forwards and back again.
6. Great work, now just release your wrists by rolling through some wrist circles in the air and get ready to cover some wrist and hand strength work in the following video.

 

Finger Push-Ups

In this exercise we focus on the middle three fingers. Start with most of your weight back over your deals. Push down into the pads of your fingertips and leave the rest of your hands off the floor.  Aim for 8 reps or more if it feels OK. As your fingers get stronger, you’ll be able to take some more of your body weight forwards over your hands, rocking onto the pads of the fingers and taking the hands off the ground. Then we go on to first knuckle Push-ups. So we’re lifting the palms of the hands up and down without taking the fingers off the ground, so hinging at the first knuckle, again, aim for eight reps or more.

Wrist Push-Ups

Next is wrist push-ups. So here we’re going to lay the back of the hand down, palms face up, with your fingers pointing in towards each other. Lift your wrists and make a fist with your hands against the floor. To begin with you can start by doing one hand at a time, then build up to doing boht together. Again, keep your weight back to start with, and as your wrists get stronger, you’ll be able to take more body weight forwards through the wrists and hands.

Wrist Rocks

Make a fist with your hands, with your hands set up in a parallel grip orientation, knuckles on the floor. Take your weight forwards slightly and rock onto the edge of your first finger knuckle. Then rock back to the heel of the fists, bending at the elbows. Repeat this back and forth eight or so times. This whole routine will help build strength, and endurance in the hands to enable you to balance and hold a longer handstand

How do I stop my handstands from hurting my wrist

Follow our guidance and make sure that you are warmed up properly before practicing your handstand. Secondly, focus on keeping your wrists straight as you hold the handstand position. Finally, don’t hold handstands for too long at a time; take breaks in between handstands and between practice sessions – little and often is the best way.

Do handstands damage my wrists?

There is some risk of wrist damage with handstands, but it’s minimal if you’re careful. The most important thing is to slowly and gradually increase the duration and difficulty of your handstands as you get stronger – don’t try to do too many advanced moves before your wrists are ready.

Also, keep your wrists straight as you do a handstand – bending them will put more stress on them and increase the risk of injury. If you’re still worried about wrist damage, you can wear wrist wraps. There’s no evidence to suggest that handstands are bad for your wrists. As long as you have a proper strategy to build up strength in your wrists, like the one outlined in our handstand series, you should be fine.

Are you ready to follow along ? Lets go!