Wrist Push-ups Questions

Hello everyone!

I tried doing a set of 10 Wrist Push-ups today. I did them from my knees. Couple of questions:

1) Are they suppose to hurt? Because for the whole duration of the set, it was simply painful. Once I was done with the set, after a few minutes, the pain was totally gone (so I guess it was more of a strain). Still, is it normal that it is simply painful? Is it gonna pass with time.

2) While the back of the hand is in contact with the floor and you are performing the rep, should you constantly try to extend the wrist ("open" them), or should you just not do any muscular effort at the wrist except that of flipping it over at the top to end in your knuckles?? I'm using Coach's video as a guide.

3) What are the benefits of doing these? "Wrist Conditioning" sounds too broad. As far as I know, I won't be doing any skills that require keeping the wrist with the back in contact with the floor and supporting my weight on it, so I guess its benefit is carry-over to something else?

Is it because it somehow balances the amount of lean things like Planches and Handstands require?

These shouldn't hurt. Maybe try scaling further back (I need to do it on knees, and with significant piking in the hips). The motion of going from the closed fist to the open hand should be as slow and controlled as possible, so you should scale back to a point where you won't need to 'flip' on to and off from your wrist.

They may be uncomfortable but not hurt. You can also try a little padding under your hands.

They main function is to balance out the muscles of the forearm since we do so much with the hand extended we need to balance that out by strengthening from the flexed position as well. The same goes for the fingertip and knuckle pushups.

Mr Brady said:

They may be uncomfortable but not hurt. You can also try a little padding under your hands.

They main function is to balance out the muscles of the forearm since we do so much with the hand extended we need to balance that out by strengthening the flexors as well. The same goes for the fingertip and knuckle pushups.

I used padding as well. It hurt, but it was gone a couple of minutes after I was done.

So I thought it could be a strain, and perhaps "good pain"? I'll scale back just in case though.

BTW, wrist push-ups work the flexors? I thought handstands (and any move where you dip the fingers into the ground) works the flexors and thus, any move where you dip the BACK of the fingers into the ground (especially when you flip the hands into fists) would work the extensors.

I'm a bit confused.

Thanners: All right, thanks man! I read that speed should be controlled little by little as you become proficient (so I was doing it fast the first time), but since I'll be using less weight, I'll probably be able to get away with doing that part slowly

Sorry to confuse you, all this terminology. You are right, for some reason i was thinking of the position of the hand when i wrote that, but its the extensors getting worked (mostly) in the wrist pushup, flexors in HS.

Mr Brady said:

Sorry to confuse you, all this terminology. You are right, for some reason i was thinking of the position of the hand when i wrote that, but its the extensors getting worked (mostly) in the wrist pushup, flexors in HS.

Great, great. That's fine, don't worry.

Thank you very much!

Also, just quickly, what would you define the difference between "uncomfortable" and "pain" to be? I read about Sommers' sticky on strain vs pain (strain stops right after a set is finished, while pain keeps going), and by that definition, I would guess it was more of a strain. Still, it hurt. So perhaps my "hurt" is your "uncomfortableness"??

I think that Coach Sommer's statement is a good one, hurts = causes injury.

Of course, sometimes uncomfortable = injury waiting to happen.

You can play around with how you put your weight over your writs so the movement is as comfortable as possible. Its easy to do the movement with bad alignment, basically just leaning on your wrist joint, because the supporting musculature is so weak. Use your muscles to do the movement, even if it means scaling back even more.