# Heavy presses killing my wrists! Ideas?



## GastrocGuy (Dec 28, 2012)

Lately, I've been doing heavy presses (bench, overhead, dumbbell) and my wrists are killing me! I'm not too keen on wraps, just figured out that maybe you guys have ways around wrist problems, if ya have any?


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## Ironbuilt (Dec 28, 2012)

Possibly build some forearm grip strength through exercises cause you probably know the wrist is the weak link of the arm similar to a u-joint on a car driveline. So I suggest wraps to support the load your attempting till you build up tendon strength and even then genetics control that. Nothin wrong with wraps , grow man grow.  If you got all day aches use DMSO . U will be surprised how good it works..


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## darksidefitness (Dec 28, 2012)

Make sure your wrist are straight up and not bend...there are some small wrist straps (cheap) that you don't waist too much time wrapping them and really help form and prevent from any additional pain. You may don't like them but they really help. Is not about how much you can lift now but for how long can you do it. Think as a short 100mts run or a 42K marathon. Depend on you how fast or strong you want to finish the race.


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## AnaSCI (Dec 28, 2012)

darksidefitness said:


> Make sure your wrist are straight up and not bend...there are some small wrist straps (cheap) that you don't waist too much time wrapping them and really help form and prevent from any additional pain. You may don't like them but they really help. Is not about how much you can lift now but for how long can you do it. Think as a short 100mts run or a 42K marathon. Depend on you how fast or strong you want to finish the race.



I agree. Check out APT for wrist straps that should alleviate the pain to your wrists.


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## Incognito1 (Dec 29, 2012)

I agree with the above in trying to keep your wrist as straight as possible. At first you won't lift as high as you need to concentrate more on the wrist being straight but it does help. Another thing I do is have my thumb located above the bar along side my fingers rather than under the bar. This may help a little


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## darksidefitness (Dec 29, 2012)

This is called monkey grip or thumb-less grip. Is dangerous and even banned in some powerlifting federations. Check youtube...there are a lot of "funny" gym accidents while exercising with this type of grip.




Incognito1 said:


> I agree with the above in trying to keep your wrist as straight as possible. At first you won't lift as high as you need to concentrate more on the wrist being straight but it does help. Another thing I do is have my thumb located above the bar along side my fingers rather than under the bar. This may help a little


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## The Grim Repper (Dec 29, 2012)

The points made above definitely reinforce each other, no pun intended.  It's very interesting when you think about it.  Placing your forearms under the bar, you have a 'pedestal' so to speak from the wrist to elbow where letting the wrist cock back, you're not quite square under the load.  The thumb-less grip accidents darkside mentions happen when the bar slips forward, off the palms onto the poor bastard under the weight.  The interesting part is that the body almost seems to be trying to straighten the wrist out, repositioning it under the weight during maximal effort and of course, with no thumb on the far side, the bar unresisted slips out and wham!
You should check out the wraps and the Ironmind wrist reinforcer is a great thick handled device like a dumbbell loaded at one end you use to do wrist work with a hammer grip.  Personally, I'd save coin and go with just loading one end of a dumbbell! LOL


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## Jello (Dec 29, 2012)

Learn to love wraps, they annoyed me at first as well but now I can get back to heavy lifting without all the pain.


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## GastrocGuy (Dec 29, 2012)

Thanks for the great tips, I do have some forearm weakness, I've had tendinitis and golfers elbow. Didn't know forearms played into that. Haha, and I'm so guilty of the monkey grip (and not from gripping  THAT monkey). Sigh, I'll try using wraps, hopefully not turn into the guy that walks around the gym with his weight belt on!


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## formula1069 (Dec 29, 2012)

I love wrist wraps and i also use elbow sleeves , I use them on all press moves, without the sleeves my workout would suck cause of the pain in my elbows, I sure do miss my early 30's 
I did research TB4 peptide this year which did help ALOT with my tendinitis, felt great and knees felt better also, and plan to research it again this coming year, you might want to give it a try, i also use a product called DMSO and rub that in on my elbows before i workout on bench and tricept days


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## GastrocGuy (Jan 1, 2013)

formula1069 said:


> I love wrist wraps and i also use elbow sleeves , I use them on all press moves, without the sleeves my workout would suck cause of the pain in my elbows, I sure do miss my early 30's
> I did research TB4 peptide this year which did help ALOT with my tendinitis, felt great and knees felt better also, and plan to research it again this coming year, you might want to give it a try, i also use a product called DMSO and rub that in on my elbows before i workout on bench and tricept days



Haha man I tried DMSO and I had to chew some gum for 30 min, bleh! It did feel better on my forearms! Have to check out the TB4!


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## tkav1980 (Jan 3, 2013)

Definately try wraps but one thing I noticed helps either eay is using a false grip......Be careful though, 90% of people do not use a false grip properly...here is a video of dave tate explaining the right way to use a false grip.....

Elitefts.com- False Grip - YouTube


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## Ironbuilt (Jan 3, 2013)

DMSO rocks.. Its my miracle cure and it's pretty quick too!


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