After nearly 40 years of practice, and now being an aging yogi at 76, I’ve developed arthritis in hands and wrists, which were exasperated from a bicycle accident this summer and included a broken pelvis and separated AC. Injury to wrists has now progressed into osteoarthritis.
As I have slowly worked my way back into practicing I’ve discovered a few practices on DYWM which accommodate wrist issues. Fiji McAlpine’s practice is especially helpful.
I would like to encourage instructors to offer more practices that address a very common problem for those of us well into aging. Arthritis in the hands and wrists. I’d like to continue yoga for many more years, but I am finding that so much is inaccessible to me now due to my wrists.
I very much appreciate all of the available help and information that DYWM provides.
I am happy you have healed from that accident! Yes this is a great point, many of us will experience wrist of hand limitation for some reason so having classes to support this is important. Rachel has a couple wrist free classes, and Jonni-lyn too!
Wrist injuries are extremely prevalent, especially in types of practice that involve weight-bearing poses such as planks, balances, or vinyasa flows. In my experience, the majority of wrist pain is a result of overworking the joint without sufficient strength, flexibility, and knowledge.
A few things that work well are warming up the wrists fully, distributing weight across the palms fully, and working with props such as blocks and fists. It’s not a limitation to work with variations of the pose; teach yourself to practice this. Additionally, patience and regaining power are fundamental in healing and conserving against future injuries.
Thank you, Fiji and David for your input.
I had forgotten about using props to relieve pressure on wrists. I am working on that aspect of addressing wrist issues.
Also, the ‘preventing wrist pain in yoga’article was helpful. I’ve requested the article on variations of asanas and vinyasas and am looking forward to learning more adaptations that might help me moving forward with my yoga practice.