Daily Maestroism

DM #71

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016

DM #71: Finally crossfitting with some regularity and been seeing this a lot. There's always a number of things that could be causing wrist pain when it comes to lifting heavy things, one common one being that you've simply got wimpy wrists and need to suck it up ?. However, a mobility issue that I see getting overlooked is shoulder external rotation as it relates to the front rack position.
For a proper front rack position you need to be able to get your wrists/hands wider than your shoulders with your elbows facing straight ahead. Not only does this create torque and prevent you from smashing your hand on your shoulder (if you've got that elbow ROM) but it allows you to decrease the distance between your wrist/hand and the bar that is supposed to be resting on your shoulder. Decreasing this distance means you can maintain some sort of grip on the bar without having to jack your wrist back into a crazy position.
Find yourself lacking shoulder external rotation and you're gonna have to make up for that deficit somewhere, often times at the wrist, which basically feels like ?. Another compensation you'll see is dropping the elbows so that the bar can still rest in the hands, but it's just floating over the shoulder instead of resting on it. Far from ideal.
So, if you've got wrist pain in the front rack, this is not the only possible cause, but it's definitely worth checking out. Or you could continue smashing and mobilizing your wrist until it's numb and no longer hurts. Your choice. Just remember, it's all connected.
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