How To Reduce Wrist Pain Caused By Front Squats

Anyone who has just started performing front squats will have the same complaint.  There’s a sort of stinging, stretching pain that you feel at your wrists.  People often give up the front squat because of this pain as well as the reduce weight that they will be able to lift.  While it is highly encouraged to persevere through this pain, don’t resort to doing the “Hands Touching Opposite Shoulders” position that you see a lot of bodybuilders doing.  There’s a proper way to develop the mobility in your wrists.  Here are a couple of tips to help you out.

Understand The Position

The proper position for the front squat is having the bar resting in the palms of your hands or at most with your fingers wrapped around the bar. Your hands should be just wider than your shoulders, and the bar should actually be resting near your clavicle (collar bone).

The reason why it is so important to get your body into this position is because the front squat is actually the transitional move performed during many Olympic Movements, such as the snatch or clean and press, and if you can get this movement mastered you will be able to move heavier weights and as a result gain both muscle and strength…just look at olympic athletes.

Ok, now that you know why you shouldn’t just do the hands touching opposite shoulders position here’s how you can reduce the wrist pain:

Get To The Pain

Believe it or not, the wrist pain that you feel is from tight lats (along with tight wrists). As you may know the lats are muscles of your back, and it may be confusing to consider, but if you were to properly stretch out your lats you would notice a difference in how your wrists feel while performing the front squat.

One of the best stretches for the lat is the:

Elbow Pull Back

1. Take your arm and reach over your head to touch your opposite shoulder blade.
2. With the opposite arm, grab the elbow of the over head arm and pull back.

You will feel a stretch in that lat. Hold this for one minute and repeat with the opposite arm. Continue alternating until you feel loose enough.

One last thing to do is warm up your wrists, below are two effective stretches:

Wrist Rotations

1. Place your arms out in front of you, bent up facing the ceiling and touching at the elbows.
2. Interlock your fingers and do circular movements revolving your interlocked hands about your wrist.

Fore Arm Stretches

1. Hold your hand out in front of you as if you were being sworn in to office.
2. Take the opposite hand and pull back the palm of the hand that is being “sworn in”. Hold for about 5 seconds
3. In the same fashion, push that hand forward now. Hold for about 5 seconds
4. Continue in this fashion until you feel your wrists loosened up.
5. Repeat with the opposite hand.

Follow this warm up procedure, and you will see a difference in how your wrists feel while performing this iconic strength and muscle development movement.

Don’t resort to doing the “Hands Touching Opposite Shoulders” position.