Rest or gentle recovery for minor wrist irritation?

I tweaked my wrist about 8 months ago, and I'd like to get it back to 100% here.

The way it happened was kind of embarrassing:

I had just completed an HS1 session, so my wrists were a bit fatigued. An hour or two later I was zipping up my fly and I felt a twinge in my right hand/wrist, along the back of the hand where the hand joins the radius.

It hurt for a couple of days whenever I tried to make a twisting motion, like opening a doorknob.

I backed off on training HS1 and pressing movements like sPL and HBP for several weeks until the pain subsided.

Since then, the wrist has felt OK while I'm training, but I'll sometimes feel a minor dull ache and irritation after training. I have never trained through pain with this. The discomfort comes on later, so it's hard to figure out what movements cause it. So many of the moves in F1, HS1 and the stretch series involve dorsiflexion, and I'm not really sure what to avoid.

For the last week, I've been modifying all of my F1 PEs to avoid any dorsiflexion (i.e. doing pushups and scap shrugs on my knuckles). 

I've also been doing daily VERY gentle sets of the HS1 wrist stretches and exercises. I'm doing the stretches on the floor with a gentle hold (no bounces or rocks). And I'm doing 1 set of 10 reps of each of the four wrist pushup progressions, again very gentle and against the wall with light pressure.

Does this approach make sense, or should I be looking at total rest instead? I have taken a couple of weeks off from GST over the last 8 months for other reasons, which obviously wasn't enough. 

I'm definitely considering seeing my physio if the problem persists, but I'd appreciate a little guidance here to see if I can gently work my way through this. 

Hi Josh,

You are being smart about your training; way to go! I would recommend resting the wrist completely for another week or two. After that, ease in with your light stretches and wrist exercises again. You might also consider going back to Step one on any exercises that bother your wrist so that you don't push it too hard too fast.

Like you suggested, it would also be smart to see a physio about this problem. It's better to get things checked now than to be forced to get it looked at when it becomes a bigger issue.

2 hours ago, Jeffrey Bittner said:

Hi Josh,

You are being smart about your training; way to go! I would recommend resting the wrist completely for another week or two. After that, ease in with your light stretches and wrist exercises again. You might also consider going back to Step one on any exercises that bother your wrist so that you don't push it too hard too fast.

Like you suggested, it would also be smart to see a physio about this problem. It's better to get things checked now than to be forced to get it looked at when it becomes a bigger issue.

Thanks @Jeffrey Bittner.

I'm going to take 2 solid weeks off from anything that stretches or puts pressure on the wrists. Unfortunately that rules out about 2/3rds of the PEs and mobility exercises.

I'll spend some extra quality time on core for the next couple of weeks and give my wrists a good long break, then ramp up again after that.

If that doesn't do the trick, I'll check with my physio. 

Still a work in progress here, but my wrist seems to be improving.

I tried cutting out pressing exercises first. Once I'd done that I realized that grasping moves were also irritating it—but oddly not pulling. So I dropped the weight down for twisting windmills and Russian twists too. Ring rows were fine.

After a week off, I've been able to add the pushups and scap shrugs back in, although I dropped all the way back to 3x3r, and I'm back to doing HS1 exercises 2x per week, at a low volume.

I'm also doing 3 minutes a day of trigger point massage on my forearm with a soft rubber ball, which seems to be really helping.

At this rate, a couple more weeks and I'll be fully recouped.

Hi @Josh Earl,

Good job in listening to your body. You may also add ice baths, sauna and massages to help with recovery.