Dips injure wrists?

[lowsweep]

I've been working on dips lately and I have begun to notice that after I finish the dips my wrists dont feel so good...I am wondering if doing them on angled handles makes a difference in the stress the movement places on my wrist, and if it does, should the handles be angled up or down (I have always done them on handles that are either parallel to the ground or angled up).

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i dont see how they would, but i don't know for sure. i'm only posting cause no one else has. parallel seems like it would be best for the wrist though.

[WinterPalm]

Maybe you need to blast your wrist training to a new level!!

[David Jamieson]

keep your wrists straight like when you punch.

pehaps you are letting your wrist bend? THis is causing the stress that causes the pain.

keep em straight.

cheers

[PLCrane]

I don't do these, but I read about them recently at some forgotten website. It said not to bend the elbows more than 90 degrees, and at the time, I couldn't figure out why. I think you just answered my question. When you go more than 90 degrees, the wrists are likely to bend.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

good point.

[Rolling Elbow]

Kung Lek, words out of my mouth..

weak wrists or not enough attention to detail are what are causing the pain. Like was already mentioned, keep your wrist out as if you were using a vertical punch.. practice by doing pushups off of a bench onto your knuckles. If they can't handle the weight then your answer is right there.

[lowsweep]

I have done knuckle pushups for a long time and have no trouble. I was thinking maybe the angle of the bars could make the position of the wrist more anatomically correct? thank you for the replies so far.

P.S. You aren't supposed to go lower than 90 degrees because the rotator cuff is very weak past there and in that position you can damage it.

[PLCrane]

OK, I just got two of my neighbors to sit on chairs for me, so I could try it. Going all the way down didn't change the angle of my wrists. I thought it would. Rotator cuff makes more sense - those muscles are lengthened in full abduction. Any time you ask a fully lengthened muscle to take a heavy load, there's a potential for trouble. Thanks.

PLC

P.S. This has been an interesting exercise for me. For some reason, I started thinking about the rings in gymnastics, and I think I now remember when I hurt my biceps tendon the first time. Been wondering about that for a long time. I knew the pain felt familiar, but I couldn't remember the original injury. That was 32 years ago. Moral of this story is to be careful - these things come back to haunt you later.

[ElPietro]

You should have all your weight on your palms. You are most likely keeping your weight closer to the knuckle joint. I don't think you should keep your wrists straight at all. Think of how you do a bench press. If you keep the bar along the bottom of your hand, ie. the palm, then it isn't putting any stress on your wrist, all the weight is directed from your palm down your forearm, but if the bar rolls back towards your knuckles now your wrist must support the weight. It is all about leverage, and it may take a bit to get used to if you haven't. Just reduce the weight and focus on your grip for a while and you'll get the hang of it.

[David Jamieson]

pressing and dipping have entirely different physics.

the body is live weight while a bar is dead weight.

when you use your body for resistance, correct alignment of the bone structure is paramount to the success of the exercise.

cheers

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

you dont have to use big words kunglek. we know you're smart.

[ElPietro]

Dead or live weight makes no difference, weight is weight, your body doesn't know the difference. If you are trying to push, which is what you are doing in both exercises, aligning yourself using your palms enables you to protect your wrists 100% as no stress is being forced on them. By keeping your grip neutral, one slip and you are the proud owner of a sprained wrist.

[abobo]

You say that flat wrists is a bad idea, but I find that gripping with flat wrists on the narrowest part of the v-bars eliminates the pain I used to feel in my shoulder. And that was without going past 90 degrees.

It is harder to maintain that grip, though.

[IronFist]

Originally posted by ElPietro
Dead or live weight makes no difference, weight is weight, your body doesn't know the difference. If you are trying to push, which is what you are doing in both exercises, aligning yourself using your palms enables you to protect your wrists 100% as no stress is being forced on them. By keeping your grip neutral, one slip and you are the proud owner of a sprained wrist.

You beat me to it.

IronFist

[ElPietro]

Originally posted by IronFist


You beat me to it.

IronFist

Well my friend, then you should work on your speed and reflexes, as I made that post nearly two months ago. :p

[IronFist]

Holy ****!

Can you tell I don't usually look at dates when I'm reading posts?

IronFist

[Scott R. Brown]

Try using a thumless grip. That is the thumbs located on the same side of the bar as the fingers. Wrist pain and injury is not uncommon when the thumb is on the opposisite side of the bar as the fingers. The weight tends to be distributed towards the finger end of the palm rather than focused along the ball of the palm closer to the wrist.

Place the bar on the lower palm as close to the wrist as is safely possible and directly under the forearm bones (humerus and radius bones). The weight should be on the meaty part of the lower palm. Bench presses and shoulder presses can be performed in this manner as well. It will feel strange and unsafe if you are not accustomed to this technique, but you will soon become accustomed to it and it will be perfectly safe. I have trained with a thumbless grip in all of the above mentioned exercises for 30 years and have never injured my wrist or dropped a weight even when when performing heavy negatives.

When performing bench dips be sure that the focus of the weight on your hands is directly over the meaty lower portion of the hand as well.

[Guile]

THanks Scott, sometimes I use that method when my wrist hurst and I want to bench or do push ups.