Seeking the Wise Guidance of The Gymnastic Gods

Hey guys, another Tim Ferris referral here. 

I'll try to keep this brief, I've been powerlfiting for almost two years now and have had the usual bone-headed power-lifting injuries as a result of wanting to become the strongest man in the world, yesterday  - impinged my shoulder twice on BP's, an "acute popliteus strain" as diagnosed by an Ortho from a failed Squat bail and most recently which is the original purpose of my post, an outer right wrist injury from power cleans. The first two injuries I was able to rehab back to health and set new PR's afterwards and I try (not as hard as I should) to stay mobile and pre-hab with some typical MobilityWOD drills. However with my wrist it's been 10 weeks now and I'm still facing some pain (only when I flex up and to the right) even with 7 weeks off + intermittent brace-wearing + some googled rehab exercises and peer-reviewed expert bro-science tips gathered from the wise halls of knowledge from bodybuilding.com, aka the Yahoo Answers of the fitness world. (to the uninitiated, that was sarcasm)

To be specific I loaded the bar with too much weight when doing PC's and kept a full grip as I cleaned to my front-rack (whereas I should have let the bar roll into my fingers). Real pain started 2 hours later, ignored it for 3 weeks by purchasing two braces, placing one on top of the other and resumed lifting, although not PC's (I did tell you I was a wannabe power-lifting bone head right?). 

Any other recommendations for rehabbing this? I was all excited last night to finally give Day 1 of the Fundamentals a try and I was thoroughly humbled as I attempted the Crab and Ape. Although with the Crab I can't do mcuh due to the angle my wrist needs to be at (even if turned to the side).   

Seeking the Wise Guidance of The Gymnastic Gods

Ghazi

PS - I've noticed that quite a few people joining the Fundamentals program have either long-standing or some, as in my case, more recent injuries. My humble two cents would to see if it's possible to lump these posts into a new thread instead of searching for the term "injury" and sifting through the posts. 

Ok, so I found this from @Cory Fair on how to sub flat hands with a fist or parallettes on the Crab and this from @Blairbob on how to rehab a wrist injury, apparently my self-vaunted searching skills were lacking before I posted this thread. 

So based on the above the following seems to be the consensus "fix" for a wrist injury:

• Voodoo wrapping for a few mins. I guess once-a-day/
• Wrist flexion stretches - I assume up-down, right-left.
• Rice bucket work, found a video here.
• Forearm massage - I'll do this on my barbell in the power-rack, also found a video here where they use lacrosse balls.
• Alternate between ice-water and warm-water.
• Novel wrist movements, here.

Thanks Ghazi.  This is great stuff.  I started having some wrist pain while progressing and will start to do this as part of my daily mobility.

On 5/29/2016 at 7:46 PM, Mike Connor said:

Thanks Ghazi.  This is great stuff.  I started having some wrist pain while progressing and will start to do this as part of my daily mobility.

 

Thanks Mike. I'd also add the wrist-routine from the Fundamentals Week 1 course, great way to stay on top of wrist mobility before injuries happens and also a great way to ease yourself into increased ROM as the wrist heals. 

First off, I would try to never load the bar with too much weight. Secondly, in terms of GST, you're going to want to dial back weight-bearing training while you heal from your injuries and also to ensure that you can gain healthy ROM. The fundamentals is good, though, it's honestly a much more subtle and gentle introduction to things that are covered at length and in-depth in Foundation 1, Handstand 1, and Movement 1. 

So, my following suggestion would be to purchase those three courses and to get working. Yes, you might lose some mass initially, but that's because Foundation is a son of a b---- in terms of regained mobility in areas you didn't know you were lacking. After Foundation 1 comes more advanced mobility and strength training (read: hypertrophy), which is likely what you'll want considering your weightlifting past. But, not so fast, because you'll have to master Foundation 1 first and it. is. pretty. demanding. in terms of form and reps. Everything in Foundation 1, Handstand 1, and Movement 1 will work towards injury-proofing your shoulders, wrists, spine, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles. A lot of it will seem pretty unorthodox but if you take it slowly and much more humbly than you had your weight lifting (that led to your injuries), you'll be on your way. 

Thanks for the advice @Daniel Taylor-Shaut I really appreciate it. I'm always to try new things and listen to people much more wiser than I could ever be and start from scratch, that's how I got into power-lifting from typical split routines, I started with the empty bar and worked my way up (until I got injured for ignoring mobility). 

I'm not worried about losing mass, strength comes easy (in general, to everyone). After each injury (out of action typically 7-9 weeks) I'd be able to come back and PR in about 10-12 weeks (alas though, not learning form my previous injuries). After my latest injury I decided that I needed a new plan since the path I was on was not working and just so happened that I listened to Coach Sommer on the Tim Ferris podcast as I contemplated how I would pre-hab my body. 

I'm working my way very slowly into the Fundamentals (3 weeks to work up to Day 4) because my wrist only has about 50% (wild guess) ROM and I can't sub-in knuckles for Foundation 1 and the other more advanced stuff  as I'm doing now with Fundamentals. I'm doing light training with compound lifts and wear a wrist brace to keep my body moving but main focus will be to get wrist ROM back, then finish off Fundamentals then move to Foundation as you kindly outlined and recommended. 

Thanks again Daniel. 

If your wrist is a big delimiting factor, Handstand One would serve you best of the three I mentioned, of course, doing what you're doing goes without saying. Take it easy and make haste slowly. 

+1 for the topic title