Wrist injury

Hi everyone!

I've had wrist pains for some time now, and I thought I'd come to this forum for advice as there are obviously some very experienced people on here.

I'm 19 years old and have been doing capoeira for about a year. The wrist pains date back further, though. When I was about 13, I found out I was able to lift myself up into a handstand from a sitting position on the floor (I have a few videos if you'd like to see ). I thought it was cool, so I practiced it a lot, never warming up, never thinking about what I was doing to my wrists. I gained quite a lot of balance and strength, so I was on my hands a lot. When I started doing capoeira, it hurt just a bit, so I didn't think much about it then either, but of course it got worse after a while and eventually I had to take 2-3 months break when my right wrist began to hurt too much. I then went back a few months ago when the pain had stopped, and fell right back in love with capoeira. Then, a few weeks ago, my left wrist started hurting the exact same way my right did back then!

Now, I'm not trying to diagnose myself, but the pain I'm feeling seems a lot like dorsal wrist impingement described here: http://www.hughston.com/hha/a_15_4_3.htm

I can't push myself up from a chair, I can't push open heavy doors, none of those movements. What seems so odd to me is that I can do virtually anything else with that hand. There's no pain during pull-ups, or even knuckle push-ups, finger push-ups - as long as it doesn't involve hyperextension and axial loading. Even hyperextension alone, pushing back my left hand with my right hand doesn't hurt. But you're probably all familiar with this.

My main question is: Is it okay for me to do the things that do not hurt? Seems a weird question, but I'm thinking I should do what I can to strengthen my wrists since I'm obviously a bit too eager when training compared to what my wrists are capable of, and I'm a bit scared that I should give it complete rest until the pain goes away before I do these things. What are your thoughts on this?

Thank you for a great forum!

- Michael

Do a quick test if you can: squeeze your wrist as hard as you can with your other hand and push on a chair while getting up: is the pain less intense? If it is then you've just strained the connective tissue between the two forearm bones.

Either way, you're most likely jumping onto things too quickly and not giving your body enough time to adjust to what you are doing before you make things harder. No one wants to hear this, me included, but taking 2-3 months and just doing the same thing over and over, at least for the really stressful stuff, and then making an increase in difficulty and doing the same thing again, is the best way to avoid this. Yes, it seems slow but you never have to stop for injuries and THAT is what will slow you down the most!

There is one very easy to correct problem that is worth checking. Some months ago when I first tryed tumbling, I developed a very sharp pain every time I pushed down with the hand 90 degrees to the arm (handstand, pushing a door), it became worst with time, to the point I couldn´t do handstands, but had no pain with pull ups or typing nor any other activity. I tried the typical one month no handstands + ibuprofen that should work if it is only some over use injury, it didn´t work.

So I went to my osteopath and he fixed it in 1 min!, it is just a small bone called semilunar(located at the wrist) which is very usual to dislocate in the typical falls in skating, skying or gymnastic (arm perpendicular to the floor), it is corrected by a very easy manipulation and pain will go almost inmediately, you have to wait some days to everything to settle down though (maybe a second manipulation is necessary).

It is so easy (kind of pushing the wrist bone while dorsiflexing the hand with a fast movement) that I learned to do it myself with only one hand(he taught my wife but she was unable to do the movement), I had to do it for some times after that, but now it is completely pain free!, even I can perpetrate roundabouts again!.

Maybe your problem is not this one, but if it is, no amount of prehab rehab or medicines will cure you as you have a bone out of place.

Pd, if you google it the only that you find is surgical articles of the 1920 that I don´t think will be of much help.

@slizzardman:

The pain IS less intense when I do that! Thank you, that's such a load off my mind! Also, the pain has subsided quite a lot these last few days, so it didn't take nearly as long for it to heal as it did with my right wrist. So I guess I can be sure I'm just overdoing it... Makes sense, though, I was an idiot before it started to hurt: I had just learned to do a few new tricks, one of them being the macaco, which I practiced more and more to perfect it. And of course I did too much, especially because I only did it to my good side. From now on I'm gonna be clever and take it slow, thank you!

@omegant:

Since my wrist is feeling a lot better each day these last few days, it's not that, but thanks for the advice. And I'm glad your wrist problem got solved!

Great! I spent 2 months of rest first with no improvement, that is why I loomed somewere else. Maybe it will be of some help to some one else in the future...

omegant said:

Great! I spent 2 months of rest first with no improvement, that is why I loomed somewere else. Maybe it will be of some help to some one else in the future...

This is why I am becoming an Osteopath. Well, that plus the ability to do family practice and all that other stuff. I like being in communities.

MTO said:

@slizzardman:

The pain IS less intense when I do that! Thank you, that's such a load off my mind! Also, the pain has subsided quite a lot these last few days, so it didn't take nearly as long for it to heal as it did with my right wrist. So I guess I can be sure I'm just overdoing it... Makes sense, though, I was an idiot before it started to hurt: I had just learned to do a few new tricks, one of them being the macaco, which I practiced more and more to perfect it. And of course I did too much, especially because I only did it to my good side. From now on I'm gonna be clever and take it slow, thank you!

@omegant:

Since my wrist is feeling a lot better each day these last few days, it's not that, but thanks for the advice. And I'm glad your wrist problem got solved!

That's good. Fortunately you have a pretty simple problem with a pretty simple solution lol! Sounds like you figured it out. You CAN wrap the wrist while you recover, making the wrap a little looser every week, so that you can keep some basic fitness up. Do NOT use anti-inflammatory pills. Omega 3 is ok. You may also want to use icy hot or tiger balm or any other menthol+camphor product as they increase blood circulation where they are applied. Heating the entire lower arm is also highly recommended, especially after you have protein shakes. The protein gets in your blood quickly, so after about 30 minutes you should have elevated protein levels in the blood. That's the time that increasing your circulation with a heating pad or a bucket of hot water or a heat lamp (best option) will do you the most good! The bucket is great too, shoot for 130 degree water. More than that can burn you.

slizzardman said:

That's good. Fortunately you have a pretty simple problem with a pretty simple solution lol! Sounds like you figured it out. You CAN wrap the wrist while you recover, making the wrap a little looser every week, so that you can keep some basic fitness up. Do NOT use anti-inflammatory pills. Omega 3 is ok. You may also want to use icy hot or tiger balm or any other menthol+camphor product as they increase blood circulation where they are applied. Heating the entire lower arm is also highly recommended, especially after you have protein shakes. The protein gets in your blood quickly, so after about 30 minutes you should have elevated protein levels in the blood. That's the time that increasing your circulation with a heating pad or a bucket of hot water or a heat lamp (best option) will do you the most good! The bucket is great too, shoot for 130 degree water. More than that can burn you.

Great, thanks for all the advice. So, wait, back to my first question, I shouldn't be doing wrist exercises to strengthen my wrist before the pain is completely gone? None of it hurts, so I figured I could do it without doing any harm, but I wanna be sure. Also, when Ido recommended coach Sommer's wrist routine, he recommended doing it 3-5 times a week, and every day (with very low intensity) when rehabbing a wrist injury. Should I avoid it though?

No, do what doesn't hurt. Keep volume very low, like one set that is 2-3 reps below your pain free max, at the very most.

Mechanical stress, which is a fancy way of saying making the tissue do work, makes the healing process go faster as long as it isn't TOO MUCH stress. If it doesn't hurt and the pain doesn't start to come back after about 2 weeks you know you have found a good volume. I'd keep the exact same volume for 4-6 weeks and then increase a little bit, and if you get to where 1 set of 10 reps isn't a problem 3-7 days a week then do that. Whatever the schedule you use, keep it the same. Don't add stuff in, it's going to take 3 months for your body to fully adapt to that. THEN you can increase, and just hang out there as well for a few months.

Try to remember that this stuff is permanent rehab, which is how you stay injury free. You are constantly rehabilitating all the small injuries that you can not feel so that they do not turn into something painful that forces you to stop training!

I know this is a long shot but is there anyway that Alvaro can post a video of how you do the fix to the dislocated semilunar.  I have had th wrist pain you described and it has been over a year and it still hurts. I am thinking it might be exactly what you had and I am wondering if there is anyway you could post a video showing how to do that manipulation.

Joshua Naterman said:

Do NOT use anti-inflammatory pills. Omega 3 is ok.

Joshua, what do you think of using Zyflamend? http://www.newchapter.com/zyflamend/zyflamend-whole-body

Would the same rules apply as with NSAIDs (don't use to treat a non-acute injury)? Or is the advice different because it's herb-derived?

Thanks.