3 Wrist Extension Exercises that will Change your Life.

You’ve figured it out - your wrist extension sucks. Your forearms are weak and you get pain in your wrists when you load them.

Now what? Do some wrist extensions right?

Not so fast, reader. I went through the exact same thought process myself and in this article, I want to save you time and heartache before you make the same mistakes I did.

Before you dive into the world of unnecessary wrist curls, I will explain how to actually get smoother pain-free wrist extension.

Why do you get wrist extension pain?

Pain is complex, especially if it’s chronic. There is a multi-billion dollar industry of charlatans that will try to simplify it however and sell you their antidote.

I will not do that here. Instead, I will tell you the same thing I tell all my students. Exercise is only one small piece of a much larger puzzle in overcoming pain-problems.

Despite its limitations, corrective exercise and the pursuit of better movement can make dramatic changes in how you move and feel on a daily basis.

The key is to look at your body as a dynamic living breathing organism, and not as a machine that needs certain parts “fixed.”

If you get wrist pain with extension, it might mean there is some limitation in your wrists but the problem might also be somewhere else in your body. In fact, pain in a joint is usually a sign that the joint is already taking on too much of the load.

I recommend starting with a basic assessment of how your wrists function and then moving on to other load-bearing joints like the shoulders and spine.

Assess your Wrist Extension Muscles

The first step is to integrate some easy joint mobility drills for your wrists.

For many people, just getting the wrists moving like this everyday will dramatically improve how their wrists feel. If I had to recommend one type of exercise modality for healthier joints it would be these types of mobility exercises.

They are simple but incredibly effective at lubricating and getting blood flow to the joints. For best results, do them everyday or every other day.

Notice how your wrists feel after implementing the wrist mobility work for a couple of weeks.

Things may not feel great yet but it’s good to get in the habit of evaluating where you are after introducing new stimuli to your body. There is no reason to keep adding more exercises when you find the ones that work.

The next thing you’ll want to do is assess the strength and flexibility of your wrists.

To test strength, I recommend you try dumbbell wrist extensions. The goal of introducing this exercise is two-fold. The first is to see how weak your wrist extensors are and the second is to build more strength if they are weak.

Since the first goal of this exercise is to assess, you want to start with some light weights. I recommend starting with 2.5 pound dumbbells.

If you can do 10 reps with relative ease, move on to 5 pounds. If that’s easy, go to 7.5 pounds and then 10 pounds, etc. Once you can do 10 reps at about 20 pounds, reevaluate how your wrists feel.

To test the length of your wrist extensors, I recommend the kneeling wrist extension stretch.

You’ll know right away if this is a good stretch for you. Things will feel very tight in your forearms. This means you need this stretch. Breathe and hang out there for 30-90 seconds for 2 sets.

You can do the above exercises as a full routine 1-2x a week. Start with the mobility drill, then the dumbbell wrist extensions and finish off with the wrist extension stretch.

Your wrists should start feeling better after a few weeks of this routine. If they are not or if you notice discomfort during challenging full body movements like push-ups or handstands, then you need to start looking upstream. 

How to Permanently Improve Extension of the Wrist

I saw a ton of improvement in how my wrists felt after I integrated the above exercises. Things felt much better when I had to open a jar for my wife but not so much when I worked on my back bridge.

That’s the key consideration here. The amount of work you need to put into your wrists is commensurate with what you want your wrists to do.

If you want your wrists to support a back bridge, handstands or even something like weighted push-ups, then you need to give them more attention.

The most simple addition I made in my practice was adding more volume in my isolated wrist work. I went deeper in the wrist extension stretch and did more wrist circles.

But even more importantly, I focused on full-body strength movements that incorporated wrist extension strength. The most simple movement to incorporate was a row.

What you will notice if you have weak extensors is that your wrists will want to flex at the top position in the barbell row. This is your body trying to avoid having to load these weak muscles.

I recommend you record yourself to see if this happens to you. If it does, reduce the weight substantially. You might have to just do the barbell or even do a few weeks with dumbbells first.

Your back and shoulders are likely capable of pulling much more weight but that isn’t the objective right now. Your goal is building wrist extension strength in a full-body movement.

If you prefer, you can also perform rows with rings or TRX cables. The same compensation typically applies. If your wrist extensors are weak, your wrists will flex at the top position of the row.

Do less reps or reduce the angle to make the exercise easier so you can really focus on keeping better position at the wrists.

Stick with this cue for a few months and progressively overload by adding more weight, reps or increasing the angle if you’re performing the ring rows. If you stay consistent with this approach, you will build stronger wrists. 

Closing Thoughts

The level of attention you need to put on your wrist care all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you’re simply trying to get through a daily desk job with comfort, some mobility exercises and stretching will likely do the trick.

On the other hand, if you’re into gymnastics and calisthenics, you’ll want to have a more sophisticated program in place. Neither is right or wrong. It all depends on you and your goals.