3 Steps to Improving Wrist Pain in Yoga Poses Like Downward Facing Dog Pose
Do you have pain in your hands, wrists, or arms in weight bearing poses such as Plank Pose and Downward Facing Dog Pose? Have you ever wanted to know why? More importantly, have you ever wanted to know how to help your wrist pain in yoga?
Why You Have Wrist Pain in Yoga Poses:
Supporting our body weight with our hands isn’t common in most everyday activities. However, these situations come up all the time in a postural yoga practice, most commonly during Plank Pose and Downward Facing Dog Pose. You may not have developed the strength yet to support your body weight in these positions. Furthermore, you may have some movement habits that are forcing certain parts of your body to do more than their share of the work. It can be (pardon the pun) a real pain when certain yoga poses bother wrists, hands, or elbows.
So besides avoiding these yoga poses forever, how can you help your wrist pain?
Here are 3 steps to reducing wrist pain in yoga:
Step 1: Modify the yoga pose in ways that will decrease wrist pain.
So often when people have pain in yoga poses, the focus is on modifying the pose to avoid the pain. Don’t get me wrong – this is important and necessary. Generally speaking, you don’t ever want to be experiencing pain in your yoga practice.
While pain doesn’t necessarily indicate your practice is dangerous, it is a signal in your body that you need to change something. Modifying the way you do your yoga practice is a good first step towards helping wrist pain.
Step 2: Explore and investigate your wrist pain.
As a yoga therapist, I generally prefer to do more than just modify a yoga pose. I’m interested in figuring out how people can improve how they move and feel, while also respecting messages their bodies are sending, by way of pain and other sensations.
For people who experience wrist pain in yoga poses like Downward Dog, or while weight bearing on the hands, there is often a gap between what they can do comfortably, and where they would like to be. In order to bridge the gap, I find it helpful to start by looking for areas where my clients can move easily, freely and without pain.
Step 3: Build strength in your wrists to reduce pain.
From there, we begin to build a better foundation in your wrists and hands, by gradually increasing the difficulty of your hand and wrist exercises, growing towards your goal of reducing your wrist pain in yoga.
If you have hand or wrist pain in yoga poses such as Plank Pose, the video below shares ways to build strength and work towards doing this pose more comfortably.
Where improving pain can get challenging is knowing how to gradually increase the difficulty of a movement. Please move in a range that does not increase pain, and discontinue if anything doesn’t feel right. If you need more support, always get a professional assessment.
I’d love to hear about your experiences. If you’d like to learn more about how to reduce your own pain, please click below to schedule a free consultation call with me.
