wrist strengthening

[j-himself]

hiya

does anyone got any good tips on how to strengthen the wrists? i think i got pretty weak wrists right now, cuz sometimes when i hit the bag without gloves, it hurts my wrists. and if i were to do the same to someone's face, i would probably break my wrist (precently..) so anyone, got any methods that could help me out?

thanks

[Mr Punch]

You probably already do this but... masturbate!


Just thought I'd get there before Serpent or GDA.:D





Keep punching the bag, making sure your alignment is correct as to whatever you've been taught. Flex them gently (if you know anyone who does aiki, get them to show you the wrist warmup exercises). Tie a weight to a fat stick and keep rolling it and unrolling it (winding the weight up and letting it down). Dumbell wrist curls. Kettleball (I've heard, never used one). Get a friend/teacher to show you some basic weapons exercises, like the baat in WC or some kendo strikes.

Then back to the porn.:rolleyes:

[yenhoi]

Wrap your hands.

Wear bag gloves.

Hit various objects.

Focus Gloves.

Thai Pads.

Jump Rope.

Sticks.

Stretch more.

Weight training.

Diet and supplements.

Focus your chi.

:eek:

[Cheese Dog]

I think the best way to condition your wrists for striking is knuckle push-ups. You work your hand conditioning, wrists, triceps, shoulders, and chest all at once. Just place your fists on the floor in the position your art teaches you to punch-horizontal, vertical, or 3/4 position-and do push-ups. If you've never done them you'll probably want to start on a fairly soft carpet. Over time move to harder surfaces as your condition improves.

Wrist curls are also very good. Make sure to work both sides of your wrist.

One of those grip exercisers would be helpful as well.

[Kempo Guy]

Kettlebells do work grip strength as well as forearms. You could also 'toss' sandbags, do knuckle push-ups etc. Swinging a bokuto (a really heavy bokken) and there are some great staff exercises for wrist strength as well.

For instance, keep your hand at your side (by your hip) while holding the end a 6' staff (preferably a heavy red oak staff) and keep it parallell to the ground for 30 seconds to 1 minute 'rounds'. Increase time as you get stronger.

Another staff exercise for your wrist is to hold a 6' staff at one end and bring it up to throat (level with you clavicles) level while keeping the staff parallell to the ground (if you use your right hand then at this point the back of your right hand is facing your left shoulder), this is the starting position. Now extend your arm in front of you straight out from shoulder at throat level (the back of your right hand should be facing up) slowly. Once extended pause for a few seconds (as long as you can handle) then bring it back to the starting position. It would be easier to explain if I had some pictures... :rolleyes:

BTW, I really don't recommend punching a heavy bag without gloves, but that's just me...

KG

[Mr Punch]

Actually I disagree with the wrist grip exercisers for this purpose. I am assuming he is talking about strengthening his wrists against head-on impact.

Grips will exercise the muscles of the forearms and fingers through tendon action at the wrist. And as tendons don't increase in density or flexibility, I don't really see much benefit in this.

Punching things will increase the density of your bones/muscles. Curls and kettleballs will strengthen the muscles of the wrist against cross-plane damage (misalignment in a punch).

Same goes for knuckle push-ups, unless you are doing them plosively, in which case you may as well be hitting your bag (I'm not talking about for other muscle groups, just this guy's wrists).

Standard bent-wrist palm push-ups would be better I would think.


Yenhoi, why wrap?

[WinterPalm]

Knuckle pushups, as far as I can see, are just a warm up for the hand. Striking will be made more tolerable for the hand and the wrist will slowly be strengthened by stabilization but for hitting something, this is not what you are doing. I recommened a wall bag. Fill it with mung beans or peas or whatever and hit it. Start light and work up to full force.

[David Jamieson]

Try wrist rotations.

hold your hands out to your side at shoulder level, make fists, turn at the wrist only and rotate the fist clockwise, go say, 10-15 times clockwise, then do the same counterclokwise.

Open and close the hand very fast. fully open, fully into a fist, see if you can do 30 in 30 seconds.

another thing you can do, is make a dragon hand form and press down, then raise the hand up and make a cranes beak hand form.

do this continually. same with the wrist rotations.

Hitting a bag will teach you more about how to align properly than it will strengthen your wrist itself.

another thing your could try is wrist curls with weights, or the stone on a rope wrapped onto a stick also works for this, reel the stone out, rell it back in.

one more, pick up a staff, about eyebrow height, preferably rattan or heavier. grab the staff at the very buttend so the end is in the heel of your hand. Hold the staff straight out at arms length and hold til failure. do the other hand. Over time, your wrists and forearms will grow stronger and harder. Do you sets to, hit the bag even, but it all works together.

cheers

[yenhoi]

Wrap hands so they dont hurt when he punches the bag. ;)

I think its good to punch the bag bare knuckle, with wraps, with gloves, and with wraps/gloves. All those things, mix it up. Even different types of bag gloves.

:eek:

[neigung]

my ultra-secret Chi Ken Cho King Qigong program will help strengthen your hands, wrists and forearms.
1 EASY LESSON!
ONLY $99.99!
ORDER NOW!
video available soon

[Kempo Guy]

If you're doing a lot of 'bag work', I would really recommend using gloves.

My current MMA/Boxing coach will never allow us to hit heavybags with anything less than 14oz gloves. He tells us that if you just hit bags with wraps or 'bag gloves' we'll injure our shoulders etc. I can actually attest to this... I used to have chronic shoulder problems....

The argument of course is that you will not have 'wraps' or 'gloves' in a street fight, but the reality is you hopefully are not in a streetfight everyday and you won't be punching hundreds of times at someones head during a fight either... If you do get in a streetfight and sprain your wrists, chances are you'll never feel it anyway (because of adrenaline surge in your body).

Using gloves during bag practice is much more difficult (than going barehanded) as it adds weight, which will help you with speed and overall punching power. You can occasionally hit a bag without wraps but be careful.

Train smart (and hard).

KG

[fa_jing]

I second jump rope. You'll be surprised that it works your wrists, the correct way to jump rope has you making rotations at the wrist. A wieghted jump rope is even better.

[Kempo Guy]

Although a 'regular' knuckle push-up may not be the best exercise to strengthen the wrist, there are many variations of the knuckle push-ups I use for this purpose.

I'll give you guys a couple of examples that I've found useful:

1. The "tiger-bend" knuckle push-up.
From the 'up' position, use a vertical fist (start on your first two knuckles) but keep your elbows in tight to your chest/ribs (do not flare elbows). When you go to the 'down' position, roll across your fist (towards your pinkie), then to the 'hammerfist' (the meaty part of your hand under your pinkie), wrists, and then finally drop the elbows to the ground. This is the 'down' position. Then reverse the order to get back up. This will work both your wrists and tri's pretty good.

2. The 'rolling' knuckle push-up.
Again this exercise requires you to use a 'vertical fist' starting on the first knuckle (supported slightly by the thumbs) on the 'up' postition. It goes through the regular push-up motion, but as you lower yourself you roll on your fist down to the last knuckle (pinkie) on the 'down' postition.

I use quite a few other variations of push-ups but these two are great for wrist conditioning.

Be careful! And train smart. :)

KG

[Ka]

Rock Climb

[bodhitree]

Get a hardwood staff, extend your arm to your side and hold one end of the staff parallel with the ground with one hand at the end of it. Good for forearms as well!

[fidon]

Yeah, you could practice your Staff form more and then train your wrist by holding the staff at one end and then throw it up and catching it on the other end while standing in one spot, also holding the end of it (pointed upwards) and from the centre of your body stretch your arm out horizontally while keeping the arm parallel to the ground. Also practicing with tridents (or Sais) help greatly with wrist strengthening, as you can twirl and flick the tridents around.

[Stevo]

Another good exercise is Huen Sau with dynamic tension (as I've been taught to do it in Siu Nim Tao):

Hold your arm straight out in front of you, palm up. Bend your fingers back towards you as far as you can, then slowly rotate your hand inward while making sure you keep the inside of your elbow facing upwards - don't let it rotate.

[Ka]

OKCheck out www.bodyresults.com/S2preseason3.asp

This is the good stuff and a whole lot of core excerises for all you hardcore boys.
Enjoy:D

[Ka]

Here's another interesting Wrist strengthening site
www.angelfire.com/ny5/shenandoah/OBB/forearms.html

[chen zhen]

Don't know if it has been mentioned, but a wrist-roller is one of the best ways to develop strong wrists/forearms. Just use the search-function, and something should pop up.:)
(tip for using wrist-roller: wear wrist/anckle weights on the forearms while doing the exercise, to develop arm-strength/endurance as well as strong foreams.)

[Jook Lum]

Hello!Good choice for a picture on your post(Gin Foon Mark).

[Shaolinlueb]

rotating the staff is a good one that someone mentioned and eagle claw has a couple exzercises. where you and your partner grab each others wrists and twist with the other person giving resistance. you dont twist the wrist that far but its still good for a workout.

[chen zhen]

Thanks Jook Lum (right, SPM style;))

Would'nt rotating the staff only give flexibility in the wrists, or does it strengthen them also, no matter if it's a heavy staff, or what? (question from a staff-ignorant:rolleyes: )