These wrist strengthening exercises involve pulling down into a palm down position, wrist flexion, and wrist extension, all using a theraband or tubing.
Pulling Down into Palm Down Position
- So we have the tubing, I’m holding onto it, but you would fix it onto the door knob or something secure at home.
- Work on rotating your palm down towards the floor and the tubing will give you some tension to provide resistance.
- We can increase the tension to make it harder or lessen the tension to make it easier.
- The biggest thing is that we want you to go through the full range of motion as you’re able.
- So if it’s too tight and you can’t make it all the way, you want to make the tension lighter.
- Keep your elbow tucked in towards your waist so you don’t get whole arm movement happening.
- The arm focuses on the rotation here and your wrist joint stays in neutral. You should not be twisting your wrists to achieve that rotation.
Reversing the Exercise
We know that Donna has trouble going the other way, so we are going to get her working on turning up. Coming back to neutral and working back through a full slow circle all the way. Turning up and keeping your elbow at your side.
With these wrist strengthening exercises we are aiming for repetition. So 10 to 15 repetitions or until we start to get tired – a quick rest then go again for 3 sets or so.
Wrist Flexion Exercise
- In this position we have the forearm and elbow resting on the persons thigh
- We want to maintain the forearm in a neutral position so the wrist and forearm look like they’re in a straight line.
- We also have the band attached to the foot
- We can work now by bringing the hand towards the ceiling against gravity, using the tubing to create some resistance for strengthening the forearm.
- Here we have the hand just past the knee, so it can work into some wrist extension or the hand falling down towards the floor and then pulling up slowly against gravity.
Again repeating to fatigue, aiming for 10 to 20 repetitions, taking a short break then three sets.
Wrist Extension Exercise
- In this position we have the palm facing down the forearm is still resting on the thigh and the tubing is still connected underneath the foot.
- Here we’re now lifting against gravity and strengthening our wrist extensors, which is an important muscle that we use day-to-day with many functions
- Here we’re going to work slowly against gravity pulling up to the limit of our mobility and slowly lowering down.