Wrist Exercises (MSK Patient Portal)

Exercise

Some hand and wrist conditions respond well to exercise. No matter what the exercises are the key to success and getting the most out of your exercises is to:

You may find that these exercises slightly increase your symptoms initially, however, as time goes on they should become easier.

A rehabilitation programme starts with easier exercises that gradually become more difficult. The aim is to build your function back up to a stage where you can manage all of your activities of daily living more easily and with less pain… so don’t give up too early!

Pain during your exercise

If you have been given exercises to do for your hand/wrist problem, you may find the following advice and guidance useful.

Aim to keep your pain under 5/10 during exercise. If your pain is over this, then you can modify the exercises by either; reducing the amount of movement during an exercise, the number of repetitions, reducing the weights, reducing your speed or increasing rest time between sets.

Pain after Exercise

Your pain or other symptoms should return to your pre exercise baseline within 30 minutes of exercising. You should not feel an increase in your pain or stiffness the next morning. Although, sometimes it is normal to feel some muscle soreness from doing exercise that you have not been used to.

General exercise

The recommended levels of physical activity for adults is 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise every week (30 minutes, five days out of seven) as well as muscle strengthening activities on at least two days per week. Research has shown that general aerobic exercise can be an effective way of keeping us healthy by reducing the risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, cancers and mental health problems.

 Managing daily activity

The longer we have pain, the harder it can be to stay active. Our activity levels and how we approach certain activities often change from day to day based on the level of pain we are experiencing.

You may find that on your good days, when your pain is manageable, you overdo certain activities making your pain worse. This can result in you having to recover for the rest of the day, or in some cases, for days after. This is known as “over and under activity cycling” or “boom/bust cycling”.

Over time this pattern may cause you to rest for longer periods, reducing your motivation to be active and resulting in avoidance of activity in general. Unfortunately, in most cases this will lead to a reduced strength, stamina and flexibility of the tissues in your hand.

This can often lead to more pain from your tissues having to then work harder when trying to be active.

Successful Management of Activity

Remaining active with pain can be achieved by following some key themes from the example shown below. Here, a patient with hand pain cooks and struggles with heavy pots of potatoes.

Flare-up management

It is normal for your pain levels to go up and down, even as you are getting better. These are called flare ups”. It can be helpful to have a “flare up” plan in place to help you stay in control of your pain, and get you through these times.

By having a flare up plan in place, you are giving yourself the best chance of controlling your symptoms.

You may have noticed that certain situations or activities result in a flare up of your pain. For example, social activities/situations that create stress or feelings of low mood, or, simply being over active. Sometimes these issues cannot be avoided, however, by recognising what aggravates our symptoms, we can plan strategies to help manage them.

For example, if you have a large fence to paint and you would normally be able to do this in a day, plan ahead and split it into more manageable chunks.

Recognising changes in your pain, mood, and irritability may allow you to be aware of a flare up happening as well as situations which may cause this.  Often patients tell us that they notice other signs first before an increase in their pain, such as feeling stressed or an awareness of tension across their shoulders and neck.

Flare up plan

By recognising the factors that aggravate your pain, you can plan in advance the tools and strategies to help you manage these. You may find it helpful to write these down.

Examples of strategies to help may include: