How to Perform Wrist Arthritis Exercises

With our hands and wrists playing a pivotal role in daily function, they are often subject to the onset of arthritis. Wrist arthritis can make basic daily activities hard to manage without pain and discomfort. While there is no cure for wrist arthritis, exercises are a great tool to incorporate into your daily routine. In this article we will provide you with some of the best exercises and tools you can do to help reduce your arthritis pain.

Wrist Exercises

There are two primary goals to achieve when completing exercises for wrist arthritis. The first is building and maintaining range of motion and flexibility within the hands, fingers, and wrists. Secondly, proper strength and muscle balance are equally important. The following wrist and hand exercises will cover all of these essential functions.

General Range of Motion

Functional movement of the wrist is an important part of properly managing arthritis symptoms. As stiffness progresses, so does the risk for dysfunction. Try these basic exercises to keep your joints and the connective tissue of your wrist joints and finger joints as limber as possible.

Dealing with Hand Arthritis? Check Out These Exercises Too

This stretch addresses the wrist extensor muscles in the forearm while keeping all of the little joints  within the wrist itself moving (there are 8 bones that all interconnect in each wrist!). Do not force this stretch if it makes your symptoms worse.

• Stand or sit comfortably
• Stretch your affected arm out in straight in front of you (elbow straight and shoulder between 45 and 90 degrees of flexion) with the palm facing the floor
• Use your opposite hand to grab the top of your outstretched hand and bend the wrist and hand down toward the floor
• Continue moving until a stretch is felt in the wrist and/or top of the forearm
• Stay relaxed and hold for 30+ seconds for 2-3 sets total

This exercise is great for stretching both wrists at once. This time, the stretch is addressing the flexor muscles, tendons, and other connective tissue.

• Place the palms of your hands together with the fingers pointing up toward the ceiling
• Bring your hands close to your chest as you attempt to get the forearms parallel with the floor while still keeping the hands together
• Get your forearms as parallel as possible with the ground without causing pain
• Hold for 30+ seconds for 2-3 sets
• This move also stretches the carpal nerve, if you experience tingling simply modify the stretch or take a break to prevent nerve irritation

Dynamic Finger Strengthening

Many of the muscles that coordinate finger movement cross the wrist joints and actually reside in the forearm. Thus, the wrist is a high traffic area when it comes to coordinating proper finger function. This is why it should also make sense that wrist arthritis can quickly affect finger dexterity and fine motor skills. Focusing on coordinated finger movement and strength can help. 

Each of these exercises use therapy putty for resistance. However, you can also utilize rubber bands (from your office drawer) or other specialized tools like balls and hand extensors as well. 

Full Finger Spread

This simple finger exercise strengthens the finger extensors and abductors, essential for establishing balance and stability in the hand and wrist.

• Bring all of your fingers and thumb together so that they touch in the center of your palm
• Place your rolled cylindrical putty around the middle of your fingers in a tightly closed circle (or a resistance band or finger extensor)
• Spread the fingers apart from each other against the resistance as far as possible
• Repeat 10 times for 2-3 sets
• Additionally, you can focus on only 2 fingers at a time by placing the putty around the middle of two fingers at a time and spreading them apart (rather than all of them at once)
• If you want to focus more specifically on finger extension strength, you can also place the putty or band around one finger at a time while pulling your finger straight back to complete finger lifts 

Gripping

Loss of grip strength is one of the most detrimental factors when dealing with wrist arthritis progression. Keeping your grip as strong as possible is important.

• Grab a ball, your putty, a soft towel, or anything else that you can comfortably squeeze for resistance
• Place your tool in the center of your palm with the wrist in a neutral position
• Squeeze as hard you can without causing excessive pain
• Hold for 5-10 seconds for up to 10 repetitions
• Repeat for 2-3 sets total 
• Increase the intensity of your squeeze as tolerated 

Pinching

Being able to effectively pinch your fingers together is also a vital part of functional hand use. A painful or weak pinch can make everyday tasks feel impossible.

• Grab a piece of putty and roll it into a small cylinder, otherwise grab a small soft object that you can pinch between your fingers, like a small wash cloth
• Place your thumb and index finger opposite of each other on the putty
• Push the pads of your fingers closer together as you pinch them while keeping a relative “O” shape with your finger and thumb
• Hold for 3-5 seconds at a pressure that you can tolerate
• Repeat for 10 repetitions for 2-3 sets
• You can also do this exercise in sequence with the thumb and the other fingers as well to boost dexterity- moving to to the middle finger, ring finger, and pinkie finger
• Additionally, you can practice a full finger pinch between the thumb and all the fingers at once by using a bigger piece of rolled putty- this time keep the middle joints of the fingers flat as you finger them against the thumb

While focusing on wrist range of motion and finger coordination are often enough to keep your wrist feeling good, adding in some very specific wrist strengthening exercises is a great last step as you progress your exercise program. Keep in mind that wrist arthritis management is a continual process, so you will most likely be mixing and matching all of the exercises in this article long term.

For each of the following exercises, you can start without weight (if needed) and then progress to using small dumbbells (1-3 lbs). If you don’t have dumbbells you can use a soup can, hammer, or water bottle as well.

Wrist Extension

The wrist extensors can get sore and stiff, keeping them strong and moving can help.

• Sit or stand comfortably near a table, counter, or other flat surface that you can rest your forearm on
• Rest your forearm so that the hand is free and hanging off the table with the palm facing down toward the floor
• Place your weight of choice in your hand, always starting light
• Slowly extend the wrist as you bring the top of the hand up toward the ceiling
• Move as high as is comfortable and hold for 1-2 seconds before slowly returning to the starting position 
• Keep the forearm firmly planted on the surface while keeping the upper body relaxed
• Repeat for 10-15 repetitions for 2-3 sets total
• To progress, increase the weight, hold time, or range of motion (letting the wrist actually bend down toward the floor in between repetitions) 

Wrist Flexion

Good wrist flexion strength is essential for stability with most daily hand use, such as reaching, lifting, and more.

• Set up your wrist the same way as the wrist extension exercise above, except this time your palm will be facing up toward the ceiling 
• Once again, place a weight in your hand
• Bring the palm up toward the ceiling slowly as you bend the wrist as far as possible
• Make sure to keep good posture and the neck relaxed
• Hold for 1-3 seconds before returning to the starting position
• Repeat for 10-15 repetitions for 2-3 sets total
• Progress again by adding weight, increasing the number of repetitions or sets, or going through a fuller wrist range of motion (in both directions) 

Radial Deviation

This subtle wrist movement is so important for wrist stability and can be taken for granted until it becomes weak, stiff, or painful.

• Set up your arm again like you did for the two exercises above
• This time turn your hand so that your thumb is facing up toward the ceiling
• Once again, grab your weight
• Keeping the forearm on the table, bend your wrist sideways so that the thumb side of your hand goes up toward the ceiling
• Go as high as is comfortable (this move is meant to be small) and hold for 1-3 seconds
• Slowly return to the starting position and repeat
• Continue for 10-15 repetitions for 2-3 sets total

Pronation/Supination

Finally, wrist pronation and supination provide your wrist with the strength it needs for twisting motions, essential for things like using a screwdriver or opening any type of jar.

• One last time, set your arm up as you did with the three exercises above
• Just like you did with radial deviation, turn your hand so that your thumb is facing up toward the ceiling with your weight in hand
• Keep your elbow in place as you slowly rotate your wrist back and forth (your forearm will move with this one), alternating between your palm facing the floor and the ceiling
• Go as far as possible in each direction without pain, pausing to hold for 1-3 seconds at the end of each movement
• Repeat for 10-15 repetitions for 2-3 sets total
• To progress (other than the ways listed above) you can change the position of your weight to increase the lever arm resistance, do this by holding the weight closer to the bottom so that more of it is above your hand

How Exercises Help Arthritis

Lack of movement will lead to further stiffness and weakness. Specific benefits of exercise for arthritis include the following:

• Increased blood flow to boost healing power
• Pain relief by promoting better perfusion of synovial fluid (what cushions the joints)
• Build and preserve hand function long term
• Reduced risk of complications and progression of osteoarthritis
• Fewer long term complications related to loss of hand use
• Improved muscle balance for fine motor skills and coordination
• Increased finger and wrist flexibility and range of motion 

Tips for Improving Wrist Arthritis

Exercise is just one piece of maximizing your outcomes when managing arthritis in the wrist. Below are a few more tips to keep in mind to optimize your quality of life and overall wrist health:

• Always use your symptoms as a guide each day for what you can accomplish with your exercises; never force anything that significantly increases your pain
• If you’re dealing with rheumatoid arthritis, be particularly cautious when you have any flare ups of symptoms to protect the wrist joints 
• Stay as consistent as possible with your program
• Keep up with other pain relieving modalities and home treatments for your arthritis pain- such as ice, heat, massage, electrical stimulation, and more

More on Conservative Treatments

Alternating Ice & Heat: How To

When to Use Heat Therapy

• Consider a round of physical therapy to get personalized guidance and recommendations; your physical therapist (or even occupational therapist) can point out your specific weaknesses that need to be properly addressed with hand therapy treatment
• Use tools for wrist comfort as needed; such as braces, splint, and kinesiology tape
• Pay attention to your hand and wrist ergonomics with daily activities, especially when writing, typing, eating, cooking, and sleeping; always keep the fingers and wrist as neutral as possible with these activities and avoid overexertion

Helpful Tools for Wrist Exercises

When keeping up with your exercise program, there are a few tools that can improve your workouts. These include the following:

Resistance Tools

The two best tools for applying resistance to your hand are dumbbells or resistance bands. Don’t have either? The wrists muscles don’t need much so you can grab two soup cans or water bottles. Other tools you might like for specialized hand resistance that we’ve discussed above include balls, ring grips, finger extensors.

Finding the Right Hand Exercise Tools

Types of Resistance Bands

• Therapy Putty

  Often used in physical therapy sessions, therapy putty is another great resistance tool that you can use at home on your own. A lot of these exercises use therapy putty to work the joints in your hands, fingers, wrists, and forearms to build strength.

  Learn More About the Benefits of Therapy Putty

Assistive Devices

If you notice certain activities are aggravating your symptoms, it’s time to get creative with assistance. Ergonomic keyboards, wrist braces for proprioception along with more comfortable and larger grips on utensils, pens, and toothbrushes. This is where the insight of a hand therapist can make a huge difference in making your everyday hand and wrist function easier.

Massage Tools

Keep those wrist muscles happy with regular massage. This can be done with your opposite hand, a massage tool like the cold ball massage roller, or even done with use of electrodes with a TENs unit. Pair them with the use of ice or heat to maximize your outcomes and feel your best before, during, and after your exercises.

Find the Best TENS Unit Device

More Self-Massage Tips & Techniques

Keep Sore Joints Moving

No matter what your wrist arthritis brings you, it’s important not to lose hope and keep those joints moving to the best of their ability. This will assure the best possible outcomes for years to come. As always, if your symptoms get worse or are affecting your quality of life, bring these concerns up with a healthcare professional for immediate medical advice to get your life back on track.

Sources:

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/7082-arthritis-of-the-wrist-and-hand

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