Help with Fitness with Permanent Wrist Injury/Condition

Bigger Stronger Leaner Injuries and Rehab
1

Hello,

I’ll try and keep it short and to the point. So I smashed my wrists up weight lifting about three years ago plus. At this point I have accepted that the vast majority of upper body work is no go.

What I am looking to do is to work on my general health and keep fit through swimming. However I would like to build up my posterior and legs a little since theyre very lacking.

Could anyone offer me any sensible advice about what good exercises I could incorporate to help without ending up imbalanced, due to not being able to work a lot of other muscle groups properly. Could I still squat etc.? Any help from someone experienced would be great,

Many thanks, Tom

2

Why not use lighter weight with different intensity techniques to keep your wrists happy? I broke both my arms in half right at the wrist and have screws, plates, Carole tunnel, and arthritis in both wrists and am able to do stuff like that. Granted I’m not exactly fit :joy: but it might be a work-around for you and your wrists.

3

Jim Wendler has stated that if he had some athletes who’d been around the block a few times and wanted to train their lower body without a heavy bar on their back or in their hands, he’d have them do reverse hypers, glute-ham raises, and belt squats. Are you able to do any of those?

Also lunges, calf work, ANY leg machine, hip thrusts…you can do a lot for your legs without relying too heavily on your hands.

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Wait so what can or can’t you do because of your wrist on a scale of having both ur hands chopped off at the elbow to maximum function?

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Thank you very much. Thats very helpful

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Thanks for your reply. Basically any arm/hand orientated push movement is no go. I could probably tolerate some moderate pull exercises using my hands but i would have to see. Perhaps some machine work might be the answer?

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Maybe using lifting straps? On one hand, they might pull slightly on your wrists, but they’d also require less from your hands. Not sure how they’d work for you.

Could do machine rows like that. Maybe pull downs.

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That still ain’t very specific. Are we walking pain, instability, immobility? Is it loading the wrist like holding a dumbbell in the top of a bench press position? Traction forces like holding the dumbbell in a row and having it pulling on your wrist? Gripping? Bending? Supination/Pronation? All of the above?

What you can tolerate is prob more important that what u can’t in this case. Say you can put force through the crook of your elbow/upper forearm than u could rig of Flyes from there or find apne of them pec deck machines that don’t have a wrist component to the movement. If u can hold a bar in the crook of your elbows a zercher squat can hit a lot of muscle.

I think machines are gonna be very useful for you;

SSB Squats if you can get into that position

Zombie Front Squats

Single Leg Work: Pistol Squats, Split Squats, Lunges

Hack Squats + Machine Squats (if ur able to flick the lever that unracks em)

Back Raises / Glute Ham Raises with bands for added resistance (u might like to try these single leg once double leg gets too easy or wear a weighted vest)

Other machines: hamstring curls, leg extensions etc.

I think that covers lower body aight.

Upper body wise bit more challenging:

If u r able a cable attachment that is like a strap that can be secured to any part of your body and it can be quite versatile e.g. cable shoulder raises

Pullover machines or equivalent for lats

Shrugs could be pulled off on a calf raise machine

A pec deck like I mentioned. Maybe a reverse pec deck pushing through the elbows similarly.

Most muscles of the upper body right there. I don’t think any are hit particularly well because we can’t do heavy compound moves but it’s something.