Exercise Question

[sheepdog 10]

Is there any way to exercise and build up muscle in the upper arm without putting ANY strain on the wrists? Milking and grooming dogs wrecks hell and havok on my wrists, at times I have to wear a wrist brace due to severe pain in my right wrist, so I don't want to strain them at all, but since I've been trying to take it easy on the wrists, my upper arm muscles are fading fast. I used to unload a lot of the feed, but quite that chore to save wear and tear on the wrist. Any sugestions would be helpful.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

I think doing barbells would be good for that without having effects on your wrist. I am not 100% sure on that but you should be able to lift them without moving your wrist (using your elbow) which should help out with arm muscles.The only other thing I could think of would be pushups but those require bending your wrist as you go down and up if you want to do them properly.

[anwiii 17]

no. i think anything you lift will probably put a strain on your wrists so i would highly advise you start using a good wrist brace from now on when you do your lifting. you have the right idea. what you can do in your spare time is try to do wrist exercises that may help strengthen your wrist muscles. that would probably be your best bet for the long run. i don't think there is any short tern cure for your arm muscles without straining your wrists further.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

no. i think anything you lift will probably put a strain on your wrists so i would highly advise you start using a good wrist brace from now on when you do your lifting. you have the right idea. what you can do in your spare time is try to do wrist exercises that may help strengthen your wrist muscles. that would probably be your best bet for the long run. i don't think there is any short tern cure for your arm muscles without straining your wrists further.

I think it would ultimately depend on how you are holding the item. If it is more of an up and down motion you would not really be using your wrist -- on the opposite end, lifting/setting over and over would.

I'm thinking up/down may put pressure on the bone itself but it should not affect the muscles since you are not moving your wrist back and forth. So I guess it would also depend on what is really hurting -- muscles or the bones.

[anwiii 17]

I think it would ultimately depend on how you are holding the item. If it is more of an up and down motion you would not really be using your wrist -- on the opposite end, lifting/setting over and over would.
I'm thinking up/down may put pressure on the bone itself but it should not affect the muscles since you are not moving your wrist back and forth. So I guess it would also depend on what is really hurting -- muscles or the bones.

i think it all depends on what is hurting and how you are holding the item. ultimately though, if you hold anything in your hand, it's going to put pressure on the wrist whether you bend it or not so even with a wrist brace, it can still injure your wrist depending on how you are holding an object. if the wrist is so sensitive to holding things, it might even be sensitive when you aren't holding anything at all and just clench your fist which would also put pressure on the wrist. the only reason why i know is because my wrist used to be sensitive at one time of my life when i would have to carry car windshields all the time and load the on and off the truck for deliveries. over time, i had a hard time holding them because of my wrist. i would have to relieve the pressure by twisting my wrist a certain way and cracking it. even just lifting a suitcase was hard on the wrist and that doesn't require lifting the arm or anything. i never wore a wrist brace. i just had to take it easy on my wrist. or it would have gotten a lot worse, so again, i would not only wear a wrist brace, but i wouldn't life a thing unless i really had to or the wrist WILL get worse over time.

arm exercises will be limited right now. i still highly suggest wrist exercises by rolling your wrist to the left and then to the right, up and down and repeating that with nothing in your hand. there are more, they are just hard to explain in words but you can probably find pictures on the net with a description. some wrist exercises take two hands.

[web_designer 7]

well, since you can't lift anything heavy, so your only choice is to do some light sport that don't require any lifting or straining your wrist. the best option you have is the aerobics. they are usually a sequence of ?repeating moves that not strain you wrist at all. you can find it in the net either as pictures or as videos, good luck.

[sheepdog 10]

I really appreciate all the input. This is quite a delema. I can't afford to loose my arm strength. Even if it is July, I know winter wood hauling time is just a few months away! And for the rest of the time, I can't afford to be a weakling anyway, I still have to unload feed occasionally, and then lift dogs up on the grooming table, and a few dozen other chores around here that require brute force. I don't think more exercise is going to help my wrists. Actually, the problem is that they get too much now. Here's a triva fact for you, know how many squeezes it takes to get a gallon of milk when milking by hand? 600! That's about what I'm getting right now from the 2 I am milking, and one is a very hard milker and it takes considerable force behind the squeeze on her. Then there is the high speed vibration from the electric clippers, and the heat generated by them doens't help either. After a day of clipping my hand looks like I stuck it in a microwave! Washing gravel is also a strain, the constant grip preasure on the spray nozzel and the constant motion of moving the water stream. (but at least it's cold water and doesn't cook my hand) Been thinking about this quite a bit. The bar bell thing gave me a glimmer of an idea. Do you all know what a post driver is? It's a heavy metal pipe, open on one end so it can slide down over a metal T post, and metal in the other closed end to hit the post with, and a handle on either side to lift and bang it down on the post. Since it is fairly big around, I can grip it without a lot of strain. If I watch what I am doing, I can keep my wrists absolutely straight and not move them at all. I started out by keeping my elbows pointed down, and just lifting the driver up and down, keeping my elbows pointed down all the time. I'm going to start slow, 10 lifts and then since the driver is heavier on one end than the other, I flip it around and do 10 more with the heavy end on the other side. Then I do 10 more lifting it from the shoulder, straight up and over my head, flip it and do 10 more. I can really feel it by the time I'm done, even my ribs start to hurt! Beauty part is, we keep the driver in the barn, and I can work in the routine while I am waiting for the goat to finish eating her grain after I get done milking, so it really doesn't take any time out of my busy routine. I'm going to keep it at these numbers of lifts for awhile, to see if I have any flair ups of my wrists. If not I can slowly increase them, and then on days when I have to clip or wash gravel, I can skip the lifting. We will see how it goes. Thanks everybody for the sugestions. I had really been racking my brain on how to do this. I have never been one to do much exercise, I have too much physical stuff to do all day long, so it always seemed rather pointless to do more!