What’s goin’ on guys!! Hope you’re doing well! Welcome back and ready for another very important topic we are going to talk about today!
We are gonna cover the importance of building strength and flexibility in your wrists and palms, so to make easier all those exercises that are actually causing a lot of stress to them.
If you think about that, you will realize that there are no actual exercises that can be excluded from the ones that are somehow causing, with different intensity, stress in your wrists and palms.

So, either you think about all those Calisthenics exercises performed while hanging on a bar, on rings or on parallettes, or all those performed on the ground, wrists and palms are always under stress!

That’s why one of your main goals, when you get into Calisthenics, must be since the beginning the development of a solid strength, flexibility and conditioning in your wrists and palms.

Let’s see which exercises can be helpful to achieve such goals!

STRENGTH AND FLEXIBILITY EXERCISES FOR INDESTRUCTIBLE WRISTS AND PALMS

The sequence we are going to show you below, has to be followed in its precise order so to get the best effects out of it:

• FINGER PULSES: start from a position sitting back on your toes and knees, palms of both hands elevated from the ground, making sure that the only part that touches it are your fingertips (thumbs excluded).

While keeping both arms straight, start by leaning them forward slightly so to choose the intensity of the exercise (the more you lean, the harder) and perform little pulses on your fingertips with fingers wide open so to provide the stance needed.

Perform at least 10 pulses total to start with

• PALM PULSES: similar to the previous exercise, with the difference that in this case the pulses will have to be performed on your palms and not anymore on your fingertips.

Also in this case, the more you lean forward with your arms, the bigger the intensity.

Make sure to keep your fingers wide open and adherent to the ground and to elevate at every repetition, only your palms.

A mistake that I see often occurring in the beginning, when approaching this exercise the very first time, is the instinct to bend arms a little while performing the pulses.

Always make sure to avoid to bend them, since the purpose of this exercise is to strengthen indeed your wrists and palms, thanks to the intensity provided by your bodyweight that is going to be directly loaded on them, but only by keeping arms straight.

A more advanced variation of this exercise sees your body parallel to the ground, hence horizontal and not anymore sitting back on your knees and toes.

By doing so, you can understand how the whole bodyweight is directed entirely on your wrists and palms whenever you perform a pulse.

Perform at least 10 repetitions in its easier form and, once you get stronger and more flexible, 10 repetitions of the harder one

• SIDE TO SIDE PALM ROTATIONS: starting again from a sitting position on knees and toes, make sure to place on the ground just your fingers.

Once again, by standing directly with your arms straight on your palms, you will provide a more intense effort.

The purpose of this exercise is to increase the mobility and of course strengthening your wrists by performing slight pulses side-to-side, rolling all over the finger bones from the right to the left.

Also in this case, perform at least 10 pulses side-to-side, but is implicit that you can always do more, like 20-30 reps

• FRONT FACING ELBOW ROTATIONS: start again in the same position on the ground as for the previous exercises above; keep your arms straight and hands at a shoulder-width, flat on the ground with fingers wide open.

Start to rotate slowly your elbow pit so to create a sort of circular movement in order to perform repetitions by bringing it in and out.

Perform at least 10 repetitions to make it effective in the routine

• SIDE-TO-SIDE WRIST STRETCH: in this exercise, once again starting by sitting on your knees and toes on the ground, keep placing arms straight and hands shoulder-width apart with fingers wide open, but this time they are taken out to the sides, hence in a 90° position.

Start to elevate one hand, while the other one remains attached to the ground so to provide a little stretch to its wrist while moving the bodyweight onto it.

Repeat the same for at least 10 repetitions on each wrist in order to make it effective.

• REAR FACING WRIST STRETCH – PALMS DOWN: while sitting on the ground once again on your knees, place your fingers in their direction.

Make sure to place the hands at a fair distance from your knees so to be able to keep the heel of both hands adherent to the floor and the arms straight, not bent.

Start leaning back in sufficient way to provide an effective stretch to your wrists without elevating indeed the heel

Of course, you can approach this exercise also by leaning back on one single wrist at a time for multiple repetitions.

Perform at least 10 repetitions either you do it contemporarily with both wrists or alternated

• REAR FACING WRIST STRETCH – PALMS UP: similarly to the previous exercise, hence starting from the same position on the ground, flip your hands over so to have this time the back of your hands on it and not anymore the palm that is facing up.

Also here is very important to keep arms straight and not bent while performing the exercise.

As before, perform little pulses by slowly sitting back on your toes for repetitions.

Since this exercise is more intense in terms of stretch provided, make sure to perform it in controlled way all the time.

Perform at least 10 repetitions with both wrists

• REAR FACING ELBOW ROTATIONS: from the same position of the rear facing wrist stretch with palms up and arms straight, keep the back of your hands on the ground and start to rotate your forearms so to perform a circular movement between wrists and shoulders.

You can understand if you are performing the exercise in correct way, by paying attention to your elbows that, at every repetition, they have to lock in and out

Perform at least 10 slow repetitions

There you have it! Make sure to follow the order of the exercises explained above, to perform each one of them in controlled way and with correct form and we guarantee you, you will increase your wrists and palms strength, flexibility and conditioning!

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOMETHING GOOD AND SOMETHING GREAT IS ATTENTION TO DETAIL