Our wrists are that delicate frame where the foundation of so many asanas lies on. How everwe where not design to support our body weight on top of this part of the body, we are ment to walk on our feet, and it doenst matter how awesome a walking handstand can feel it might not be the friendly injury-free practice we would love it to be.
So, witch are some of the reasons, places, that can cause a wrist injury?
Surface. We dont want to practice on top if a very soft ground, like a carpet floor or a gymnastics mat, because this ends creating an uneven surface where the wrists feels wubble. Another very comun place to end up injured is at the beach, I know!!!! is so tempting to jump around and try out that drops back, arm balance asanas, etc…..but might be that we wake up the next day not being able to hold a spoon.
Not having a solid foundation. Uneven weight can cause to much pressure to come onto a single area of the wrists. Depending on our shoulder flexibility the position of our hands can change a lot in a plank position, down dog, chaturanga…regardless of the range of motion that we have in our shoulders we want the fingers to be evenly distribuated and having the weight supported both on the inside (knucle of the index finger) and the outside (knucle of the little finger). The same applies to front and back of the hand, fingers and heel of the hand.
Lifting to fly. Lets say our practice involves jumping back/forward to/from down dog from to a sitting position, or even jumping forward to standing, and we feel we dont have the length in arms to achieve that, the idea of lifting the heel of the hand to make the body fly might be very desirable, the issue with this is how unstable the whole wrist joint becomes. SO, KEEP YOUR HANDS GROUNDED.
Twisting the wrist while binding or locking. Asanas like prasarita padottanasana C, D or Ardha Baddha Padma paschimottanasana involve us locking or or two hands around the body looking to hold onto a foot, ankle or any other body part, make sure you are not creating tension on the wrist in order to hold on to that leg, foot, hand….etc
