What’s The Cause of Wrist Pain in Yoga?

Trish Corley Author

How Dr. Trish discovered the most common cause of wrist pain in yoga.

.

Do you know what is the most common cause of wrist pain in yoga?

.

When I first started teaching yoga in 2011, I realized that many students came up to me before and after class complaining of wrist pain. As a physical therapist, I would think about all of the pathologies I’d learned in school and clinical practice and then I would feel frustrated. I’d also learned in school a clear process for evaluating a person to determine what was going on and what could help them.

.

In the setting of group yoga classes, I couldn’t do a physical therapy evaluation, but I still wanted to help people with their wrist pain. Looking back now, I realize I made a big mistake!

.

.

In that brief time, I would ask a few questions and try to figure out what their problem was; but I usually couldn’t figure out without a full evaluation. So I would fumble and suggest that their wrist pain could be from typing, sewing, or whatever they spent their day doing.

Then I would encourage them to “listen to your body” and tell them to modify postures. I’d tell them to try using their fists in plank or to come to their forearms instead of their hands. And then the thing I regret the most is I’d tell them to just skip postures!

Why do I regret telling students to skip postures? Because there is a better solution, but it took me some time to figure all that out.

.

As I continued to teach more classes, I got better at really looking at the students in front of me and I developed a clear set of anatomy based alignment cues.

.

And that’s when I got clear on what the most common cause of wrist pain in yoga is.

.

People were not experiencing wrist pain in yoga because of how they spent their days; and it was not because they had “something wrong” with their wrists.

.

The most common cause of wrist pain in yoga is weight bearing through the hands with alignment that does not create stability and balanced action. We could also look at it like this: The most common cause of wrist pain in yoga the lack of alignment!

.

.

The more I looked at peoples’ wrists in downward facing dog and other weight bearing postures, the more I realized why so many people experienced wrist pain. They were putting a lot of weight through their hands and their hands and wrists were not aligned to support the weight!

Once we move past the stage of crawling, we humans do not spend much time on our hands. So for people coming into yoga practice, it’s not natural to weight bear through the hands so much. And if you teach power, vinyasa, or a related style of yoga, you are asking people to bear weight on their hands a lot!

Once I figured out that the lack of attention to alignment was causing students to experience so much wrist pain, I started paying more attention to people’s hands and giving them cues to empower a strong foundation in their hands.

.

.

In the first downward facing dog of my classes, I look at student’s hands. It’s common to see people bearing most their weight through the pinkie side of the hand and to have overall decreased awareness of what their hands are doing. And if you let students continue to practice like this, they will likely experience wrist pain.

But there is an easy solution. In that first downward facing dog I teach the anatomy informed cues that have worked for me for over ten years now. They work to create structure in the wrist and that structure creates strength. The strength stops the pain.

.

If students come up to me before or after class and complain of wrist pain, I no longer stress; I no longer worry about how much time to give the students; I no longer put my physical therapist cap on and try to figure it all out; I no longer tell them to “skip posture”. Instead, I teach them alignment.

.

I teach them the alignment cues that replace pain with strength!

.

Do you struggle to help students with wrist pain and rely on telling them to “listen to their body” or skip postures? Maybe you offer modifications, but notice how these modifications disrupt the flow of their practice.

If you want an easier and more empowering method to help students with wrist pain, you are in the right spot!

.

.

Something new is on it’s way…and you might guess that it’s the resource you need to help students (or yourself) to put and end to wrist pain in yoga. 

If you want to learn about it and access the exclusive offer coming soon, make sure you are subscribed to the Yoga Anatomy School’s Blog.

.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG

.

Categories: : Wrist & Hand, Yoga Anatomy