Do Clap Push-Ups Damage Wrists
A clap push-up (with incorrect form) builds excessive pressure within your wrists, causing pain and discomfort. Without rest and correcting techniques, this can lead to severe injuries, like fractured wrists, and have long-term negative health effects.
Athletes frequently injure themselves when they land back on the ground. At this point, your wrists are exposed to topmost pressure, and without thorough technique, the force can shatter your wrist bones.
It isn’t the clap push-up causing damage, but lack of flexibility and strength, leading to an unstable technique that injures athletes.
To prevent injury, you must ensure your hands are in the correct position and have sufficient flexibility.
How To Position Your Hands To Prevent Injury During A Clap Push-Up
During a clap push-up, our wrists must contact the ground at our pisiforms and the second metacarpal to prevent injury. To enable this, the wrist arch must be flattened without any fingers extending. This offers a rugged base to bear our body weight
When learning to walk, our feet flatten and develop an arch to keep us balanced. As we are always on our feet, this process happens naturally; however, it’s a different situation regarding our wrists.
Our wrists aren’t designed to withstand our bodyweight, so we must consciously condition and position our hands so they can carry the load of the clap push-up. Therefore you must ensure:
- The wrist is flat in its arch (a process called hand pronation) without any fingers extending.
- The wrist contacts the ground at two points: the pisiform and the second metacarpal.
Photo Credit (Evan-Amos)
Furthermore, your wrists should remain shoulder-width apart throughout the exercise to maintain a solid form.
There are two main reasons individuals can struggle using this position. These are:
- An individual is so stuck in their ways they struggle to change hand posture.
- The person doesn’t have enough wrist strength, so they require support from other parts of their body resulting in an unorthodox hand posture.
With respect to the actual clapping motion, it’s flexible. Some individuals like to ‘high-five’ themselves, while others prefer to cup their hands.
How To Improve Wrist Mobility To Ensure Safety During A Clap Push-Up
A clap push-up uses lots of internal rotation movement (rotation towards the center of the body), which requires fluidity in your joints and a full range of motion. Without thorough flexibility, athletes can damage the tendons, muscles, and ligaments in their wrists.
The wrists must be in an extension (lay flat) and a slight radial deviation (curve) to ensure a solid technique. To improve strength and flexibility around the wrists consider the below:
- Wrist-curls – Start on your knees and hold a lightweight. Rest your forearms on a flat surface, and allow your hand to hang over the edge. Curl your wrists upward, and then slowly lower them.
- Reverse wrist curls – Start with your hands hanging over the edge of a flat surface. Hold the weight with your palm facing down, curl your wrist upward, then slowly lower it.
- Farmer walk – Pick a heavy weight in each hand and walk as far as possible. Aim until failure but make sure you drop the weight safely and not on your feet!
- Wrist rotations – Hold a lightweight and raise your arm straight out in front of you. They should be parallel with your shoulders. With your palm facing downward, rotate your wrist in a circular motion, alternating between clockwise and counterclockwise.
- Hand Grips – Use a hand grip device to strengthen your hand and wrist muscles.
To make these exercises worthwhile, it’s vital to stretch your wrists in between each workout. Some good stretches to include are:
- Rotating your wrists side-to-side and front-to-back.
- Stretching your fingers out and then relaxing them.
- Placing your hands in a prayer position and slowly rotate your fingertips towards you.
- Using your hand to push your wrists down slowly and slowly bring your wrists back up.
What Are Some Common Injuries From Clap Push-Ups
Injuries from clap push-ups arise when athletes have a sudden and significant impact on their wrists or a constant beating to their wrists via incorrect technique or poor ground decisions. Common injuries included sprained wrists, carpal tunnel syndrome, fractured wrist, and wrist tendinitis.
Sprained Wrist:
Spraining your wrist frequently occurs when the athlete attempts to restore their wrists to the original position after the clap. This is because athletes leave too little time to return their wrists and compromise their wrist posture – leading to the ligaments stretching beyond their limit.
- It may swell, feel weak or become warm around the injury. If you think your wrist is sprained – don’t attempt any more wrist exercises!
- Depending on how badly you landed on your wrist will influence recovery time; however, it can be as short as a week or as long as three months.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome:
Carpal tunnel syndrome is pressure on a nerve that causes pain and numbness in your hand and fingers. It can happen to anyone, though the likeness increases with extreme wrist motion or an already sprained or fractured wrist.
- Carpal tunnel syndrome is unlikely to be developed by exercise alone; however, if you already have this condition and incorporate clap push-ups, it may worsen the condition and aggravate the symptoms even more.
Fractured Wrist:
A fracture is a partial/ complete break within the wrist joint. It can happen by applying too much weight on an unsupported base.
Individuals with a meager strength-to-weight ratio are most likely at risk as they may struggle to keep the load of their body on their wrists.
- An individual can fracture their wrist moments before they project themselves off the ground to do the clap as they apply added pressure to their wrists to get the momentum to elevate themselves in the air- which could be the breaking point for the bone.
- A fractured wrist can take anywhere from 6-12 weeks to heal. It may take even longer before you gain the necessary strength to perform your first push-up after injury.
Wrist tendinitis
Wrist tendinitis is an inflammation within the tendons connecting your lower arm to the bones in your fingers. It can happen from constant, repetitive exercise.
If you overdo the amount of clapping push-ups, you can develop wrist tendinitis, especially with an improper technique. The frequent stress clap press-ups put on the tendons may overuse the sheath (lubricated tissue around the tendons), which leads to irritation and inflammation within the wrist.
- Wrist tendinitis is only likely from over-exerting yourself or not balancing your workout with other forms of exercise.
- Symptoms include pain in tendons, swelling, and feeling a grating or crackling sensation when you move the tendon.
Mild tendonitis can be treated in as little as four weeks; however, advanced tendonitis often requires several treatments, so it could take six months or longer.
Other Forms Of Injuries
As well as your wrists, a clap press-up will distribute the pressure across different body groups. These are:
- Shoulders: When our wrists are too wide/ narrow, it can put our shoulders into a compromised position.
- Neck: If your neck isn’t in line with the rest of your body, you could bring a saw neck or whiplash.
- Chest: The chest is a core muscle group that supports the clap push-up; overdoing it can result in costochondritis or inflammation of the costal cartilage.
- Back: A lack of posture may strain your spine and surrounding muscles too much, leading to pains like aches or difficulty moving.
- Elbows: overdoing clap push-ups can result in tricep tendinitis. This Is an irritation of the tendon that connects the triceps to the elbow.
How To Treat A Wrist Injury From A Clap Push-Up
If you find yourself injured after a clap push-up, three of the best steps to follow are recognizing the injury, applying ice to the wound, and elevating your wrists.
Recognizing When You’re Injured
The first point is not to underplay the injury. When we hurt ourselves, our body is rushed with adrenaline to ease the pain – which can trick us into thinking it’s safe to carry on. For example, you may roll onto your wrists after attempting a clap push-up; very painful and requires time to rest; however, your body will produce adrenaline to relieve the pain.
If you continue exercising, you will likely cause more damage, leading to a longer recovery time. Therefore it’s imperative to relax and bring your heart rate to rest before making any irrational decisions regarding if you should proceed with the workout.
You’ll recognize an injury as the pain will become less tolerable the more you relax.
Applying Ice To The Wrist
For most wrist injuries, instantly applying ice (or anything cold) to the injury will reduce inflammation.
This is because the cold constricts blood vessels, reducing blood flow to the wounded area and preventing the wrist from swelling. Furthermore, the cold will numb the injury – helping to take the edge off of any pain you may be feeling.
Apply ice for 15 minutes on the injury and take it off for the next 7 minutes, then repeat. If you can, alternate between ice packs to keep it frozen, as your body temperature will rapidly melt the ice.
Elevating Your Wrist
Elevating your wrist above the height of your heart will lessen swelling, aiding recovery time and any throbbing pain. This is because elevating the injured area uses gravity to draw fluid away from the sprained area, reducing blood flow.
As soon as you think you’ve hurt your wrists, it’s important to raise it towards your heart and apply ice to avoid swelling.
This is why doctors use a cast and a sling for a broken wrist- to keep it elevated.
How To Adapt A Clap Press-Up With Wrist Pain
If you have consolidated your doctor and are confident you can do clap push-ups without the injury worsening, you can take several precautions (such as a wrist support, trying alternative clap push-ups and using a softer floor) to ease some of the pain.
Wrist Support
A wrist support gives more stability and balance to stop your wrist from overextending beyond its limits.
You should feel its support initially when you’re in a plank position and as soon as you land, after the clap, because these are the points where your wrists are resisting your body weight.
From our experience, the supports that tie around your thumb and tighten across the wrist work best – they are comfortable, flexible, and offer great support. However, it’s worth trying several variations to find one that fits you most snuggly.
Alternative Clap Push-Ups
If necessary, you may need to change how you perform clap push-ups. Alter it to suit the needs of your pains and discomfort, although ensure you’re still using thorough form. Some variations include:
- Balancing on your knees rather than your toes and will reduce the weight load on your wrists. This makes the pain more manageable.
- Performing a clap push-up but not physically contacting your two hands. Some individuals find the actual clapping element painful. Instead, they get their hands close to one another but don’t make contact.
- Placing your hands on an elevated surface makes the movement easier. The higher your hands are placed, the easiest the clap push-up is.
Using A Softer Surface
Lastly, the cause of the wrist pain may result from the surface you complete them on. A tough, wooden floor has a lot less give than a softer floor made from foam, so it builds more pressure in your wrists.
As a result, finding the balance between a soft surface and one where you remain sturdy to perform a clap press-up will reduce the tension that builds up in your wrists – easing the pain.
Examples include foam mats, carpeted floors, or an elastic ground (such as a trampoline.)
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