Tips for Sore Wrists?

Did the NSC on Sunday on an old road bike, and my wrists have been reminding me ever since.

Any suggestions on how to deal with stiffness and burning sensations in the wrists (aside from pain reliever and time off the bike)?

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Permalink Reply by vxla on September 23, 2008 at 7:30pm
Wrist rolls every 10-15 minutes really seem to help me on longer rides, as well as constantly changing hand position. I try to never wrap my thumb around the underside of the bars and keep the hoods directly on the boney part of my hands. Do you ride with your elbows bent all the time?

h3 has good advice, and I am not a doctor. Just giving you my two tips that I learned from a few roadies over the years.
Permalink Reply by Leah on September 23, 2008 at 8:13pm
I used to get wrist pain too although it's subsided since I got my bike (finally) properly fit at the beginning of the summer. With a few minor adjustments you can make it easy to keep your elbows bent and make sure your hands are in the right place. One of the eye-opening things for me was learning what vxla alluded to - that when my hands are on the hoods, they shouldn't rest on the top of them, with my thumbs able to wrap around to the bottom, but rather on the side-ish, as if they were shaking hands with them. A little hard to explain. I don't know if this is an issue for you, but it's something that really helped me.
Permalink Reply by root on September 24, 2008 at 1:29am
my wrists get sore as hell but it's more from coming down hard after bad wheelies
Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on September 24, 2008 at 4:11am
My hands and wrists fall alseep while I'm riding all the time and its even worse while I'm sleeping. Any good exercises that we should be doing for our abs/torso besides sit ups? I have found my upper body is so weak compared to my legs.
Permalink Reply by Ammo on September 24, 2008 at 6:33am
When I had my arms locked during riding I'd have pain. Keep your elbows slightly bent and check your seat height.
Permalink Reply by Dubi Kaufmann on September 24, 2008 at 11:30pm
I had a similar thing happen to me. Next time I'm thinking of using cycling gloves. Good idea?
Permalink Reply by B on September 26, 2008 at 8:41am
Have someone look at your fit on the bike, or check out online guides for fitting. Too narrow bars could contribute as could too long a reach, leaving your elbows locked out and unable to absorb schock.

You can also double-wrap good bar tape on the bars if you're using drop style bars. it is the cheapest way to increase the comfort of your bike.

Gloves with good padding are worth considering too. My long finger gloves have less padding and in the late fall and early winter I notice the difference in my wrists and hands.

BTW for people doing fall centuries...my $.02 is that the issue with doing one if you're not used to riding a lot of miles is *not* the "can I finish?" thing, it's the "what type of fatigue will there be afterward?" Your body takes time to adjust to riding big distances, and often it's the nagging knee/shoulder/wrist things that tell you that you jumped up in miles significantly in one ride.
Permalink Reply by kayaktjb on April 1, 2010 at 12:49pm
I'm new to cycling commuting and this thread was very helpful.

My wrists were talking back. I started straightening up my spine and consciously using my core muscles to lift my hands off the handlebars and reduce pressure on my wrists. In addition, rather than clamping down and grabbing the handlebars tightly when accelerating I tried to apply hand pressure more from the sides. Finally, I made sure that my elbows were slightly flexed. Wrists feel great.

My primary sport is kayaking. Wrist injuries are are risk factor given all the repetitive motion. The advice we give paddlers--don't grip the paddle too hard, power yourself from your core muscles, and avoid applying force while your wrists are bent--bears a family resemblance to the good advice about avoiding wrist injuries when biking.
Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on April 2, 2010 at 2:12am
Dubi Kaufmann said:
I had a similar thing happen to me. Next time I'm thinking of using cycling gloves. Good idea?

Yes. I dunno if they will do much for wrist pain, but they help with the numbness problem. They also keep some sun off the back of your hands, which, if you look at pretty much any older person, suffer a lot from sun exposure.

But for me, the greatest benefit of gloves is protection from road rash. Earlier in this millennium I had a series of stupid crashes (mostly my fault) and each time my worst injury was a huge abrasion on one or both hands. Since then I've been wearing gloves religiously.
Permalink Reply by BalloonBiker on April 2, 2010 at 3:40am
I second having gloves. If you fall, your instinct is to put your hand/s down and scrapes/cuts on your hands are not fun.

The last few times I took a spill, I was happy to have had my hands protected!

Tony Adams said:
Dubi Kaufmann said:
I had a similar thing happen to me. Next time I'm thinking of using cycling gloves. Good idea?

Yes. I dunno if they will do much for wrist pain, but they help with the numbness problem. They also keep some sun off the back of your hands, which, if you look at pretty much any older person, suffer a lot from sun exposure.

But for me, the greatest benefit of gloves is protection from road rash. Earlier in this millennium I had a series of stupid crashes (mostly my fault) and each time my worst injury was a huge abrasion on one or both hands. Since then I've been wearing gloves religiously.
Permalink Reply by GabeW (not the other Gabe) on April 2, 2010 at 4:55am
some good stretches I've used:

-neck and shoulder rolls
-stretching my shoulders/upper chest standing sideways against a wall, arm straight back, palm to the wall. also crossing my chest with my arm and pulling it towards me to stretch the other way.
-stretching my wrists by pressing my palm towards my wrist, and then back the opposite way 1. with my arms straight out in front of me. 2. with my arms out to the side. 3. with them up in the air above my head

I found adjusting my saddle angle (back) and raising my stem helped my wrist issues too.

And if you have someone to give you a rub down, that's good for the pain too. Or you can do it yourself
Permalink Reply by joe on April 2, 2010 at 7:15am
ride no handed....duh! and lets you hold 2 beers as well.

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