3 sets of hitting it with a hammer, 3 sets of pounding it against a wall. Guaranteed to take your wrist pain to a whole new level...
i don't know what type of riding you do and what type of bike you have, but for a while I was experiencing wrist pain in my right hand (at the time I was riding my XC bike with a 100 mm Manitou Black fork.) The pain was from normal hits my wrist was taking while riding down technical trails. The pain was so bad I couldn't play catch with my son since it hurt to throw a baseball. Fast forward a few months, and now i've been riding an AM bike with a 140 mm fork (Fox Float RL) and my wrist pain is almost gone. I can tell on my new bike that the hits don't jar my wrists as much as the old bike.
Not Sure but... The angle of your brake lever in relation to your arm position can put added tension on your wrist. I had pain in both wrists when descending while out of the saddle. So I increased the angle (lowered) of the brakes so my wrist and arm where in better alignment and with less flexion at the wrist it seemed to feel better. Everyone is different though, this is just what worked for me. :?:
I think I've got this mastered. If you want to make it worse, try to ride a bike like this two weeks after surgery. The most common reason for wrist pain (other than injury) is the angle/sweep of your bars. Before you go buying ergo-thingy-majiggers, you might just try rotating your bars,
Switching your grips may help. I was having lots of wrist pain until I switched to some Ergon grips. Adjusting your brake levers as was mentioned above is also helpful.
I've ridden with wrist pain for 20 years and have done rides in the Santa Anas where my hands end up so numb I can't shift. Bad news for the trip back down. A number of years ago I had to add climbing bars so I could rotate my hands for part of the time. Recently better grips and nicer fork did help courtesy of Switchback Cyclery. Never has really gone away, but learning to relax and being in better shape seems to make a difference. Sort of weird thinking that more pain might lead to less pain.
box of porno to help exercise it.. and a bottle of booze to dull the pain hahaha look up those eronomic exercises for the desk jockies who sit down all day long.. they have these twisting/stretching wrist/hand thingies to alleviate stress
Sage advice. I've experienced wrist pain on the few occasions that I rode around on my wife's much smaller bike, and alleviated it by rotating the levers down.
Time and patience. I'd say get your ergonomics worked out before anymore long rides or your just gonna exacerbate the problem. I broke my wrists 5 times! Skateboarding in pools was not my forte' apparently. I broke the nevicular bone in both wrists. They take forever to heal, if ever. If you get through that, then you can get arthritis, which is more fun later on.
I tried new gloves and they work great. Instead of wrist pain, I get reduced vibration spread evenly thoughout my whole hand. My hand gets a little jarred after a long DH run, but its better than have all the pressure being put on one point. Good gloves are designed to relieve stress on the ulunary nerve or something. The way we ride bikes usually cuts off the blood (mostly) to the pinky and wrist. Thus why your hand seems to get numb.
With the type of riding that I enjoy at some point in the course of a year (usually winter) either of my wrists will feel as though it's broken, but the X rays come out negative. Tendonitus is what they tell me. I think the scenario is something like this: macro or repeated micro trauma inflames the tendons in either wrist and it hurts a little. So I ignore it, until it hurts like fvcking hell and my friends get sick of my complaining. At this point the only way it heals is time off the bike or no jumping for MONTHS. I've tried all the physical therapy exercises and I'm sure they might help some, but once the inflammation sets in, the wrist is toast until I allow it proper time to heal. The best exercise that I've tried is the Dyna-Flex gyroscope. I read an article written by an MD in Dirt Rider magazine about macro vs. micro trauma and inflammation in the joints. Something that I didn't know and most don't is anti-inflammatory drugs have no benefit if you don't take them for at least a week. It's the cumulative effect of the drug that reduces inflammation, not just taking once after the ride. So in summary I would look into the ergos of your bar and brakes, heed the early warning signs of the pain and take it easy, take anti inflammatories, and get a Dyna flex gyro scope.
Cockpit Eval Seriously. What you have heard is sound advice. Start with the levers. When you are JRA it is not likely that you are putting extra pressure on your wrists. But when you are out of the saddle (DH) you are likely putting your wrist into an unnatural angle to deal with the brakes. They should be the first place you look. Then the bars. Change one variable at a time. Gloves will help, but loss of feeling isn't necessarily the same issue as wrist pain. You are more likely dealing with an angle problem (I get that every Friday night, but that's also different). Assuming you have never seriously injured your wrist and this is the first real issue. Geronimo...thanks for the new signature Oh and by the way...this is just cuz the thread needed a good picture to spice it up a bit (but the shocker may help your wrist pain too!)...
My wrists started to hurt as well. Even bought some wrist braces but too bulky to wear while riding. Three reasons I've concluded why they started hurting after starting to ride 3x's a week regularly. First was my posture. Arms are more fatigued on the DH so I'm leaning forward and putting more pressure on my wrists. Second, ab strength wasn't as strong. Start doing ab exercises to strengthen your core (i.e. plank exercise is good) so you're only using your arms to steer and not support all your weight. As much as I wanted the uber cool looking grips, its more important to me to protect my wrists so to help, I got new "wrist-friendly" grips from Specialized:
