Practicing Yoga with a wrist injury

One of the more ‘annoying’ setbacks in our yoga practice is dealing with a wrist injury. Especially for Vinyasa practitioners who spend a lot of time on their hands which can feel limiting on our mats.

In this post I will give some pointers on how you can modify your practice and ways in which you can speed up the recovery.

To find out how to strengthen your wrists in general, head to the post below where I have detailed this previously.

Strong wrists in yoga

Sun Salutations

Often for most practitioners, the first place we encounter the limitations of this injury is in our sun salutations. Coming down into chaturanga and transitioning into updog and down dog.

Depending on where you have injured your wrist ( medial or lateral side ) will depend on how much pressure you can apply to the floor and how you might compensate. Typically an injury to the medial side of the wrist will be more difficult to use which you can see on the side of the thumb and index finger.

Wrist anatomy

Chaturanga might be impossible if the injury is acute, so a good alternative would be to try to use your knuckles to come down. This modification can help to strengthen the wrist during the recovery period.

Chaturanga on the knuckles

For down dog it might be possible to use the hand if you able to keep the weight on the lateral side of the hand by lifting the index finger knuckle and gripping with the fingertips, keeping the weight on the outside will reduce the pressure on the wrist.

Keeping the weight out the outside of the wrist in down dog

Light hands in down dog. Keeping the weight out the outside of the wrist.

The knuckles can be used with the Vinyasas in our seated positions as well. For example with the jump back and jump through in Ashtanga we can step with control on our knuckles to complete the movement and build strength back into the wrists.

Modified jump back

The key to rehabbing this injury is to use the wrist as much as you can without applying too much pressure that you reinjure the joint. A little bit of soreness is okay. What we are trying to do is stimulate the muscles in the area to increase blood flow and oxygen so the healing process speeds up.

Blood and Oxygen heal

Movement heals, and in my experience resting for too long without mobilising the joint somewhat leads to a longer recovery time and more time off of your mat.

That said, if the pain is very sharp and you can’t apply any weight then back off completely until you can start to move and mobilise the joint.

If all of these modifications above are too much then we skip those altogether and do a very simple sun salutation A and B. In my version of Surya Namaskar A and B we don’t apply any pressure to the wrists but we move through extension and flexion of the spine and move with control with the breath. This can be practiced until the wrist inflammation comes down and the joint is less stressed.

Surya Namaskar B Modified

To see the full breakdown of my wrist injury alternatives and wrist rehab guide head to my Online Studio to practice.

Online Studio