Crutch-Wrist

Since my arms have gotten stronger, I can do a lot more crutching, but now my wrists are starting to get mad at me. So, I'm gonna try to give them a little more TLC. Here are my recommendations to myself.

First, remember that you are using them whenever you crutch so warm them up a little bit.

In karate and tai chi classes we always used to do various circular moves with our joints to warm up. They said it was to "lubricate" the joints, and I think I read somewhere that it was to allow fluids to coat all the tissues surrounding the joints. So, whenever you are about to crutch, just do some gentle wrist circles to loosen and warm up the area. Another really popular writst warmup is to interlock your fingers and then make a wave with your wrists.

In aikido we also used to stretch our wrists out, to prepare for receiving joint locks. I don't see how it could hurt, as long as you don't push to hard of anything. Anyway it was a lot like this:



Next, strengthen them. You might want to start doing this before you're on crutches, but it's better late than never. There's a nice article on this here. My favorite tip is to brush your teeth with both hands! I'm right-handed and it is my left wrist that is bothering me. For some reason, until I got this tip, I didn't put two and two together.

Last, if you know you'll be crutching and your wrists aren't strong enough or are really irritated, you could wrap them. A nice how-to is here.