Wrists hurt when doing curls

If your problem is, in fact, tendonitis, then icing the affected area will help to reduce the swelling that often accompanies this condition while also keeping the pain lower than it otherwise would be. From there, you can wear a medical bandage around the arm to promote better blood flow to the damaged muscle tissue, tendons, and ligaments.

Just be sure to keep the fitting fairly loose. Finally, keep your arm elevated some of the time. But where possible, aim to maintain an elevated arm position. Some slight elevation is just fine here. This advice is somewhat ironic considering that I was a serious ego lifter on curls as a teenager, but the truth still applies: Train your biceps, not your ego. Initiate every single rep with your biceps. Perfect your form, rest up, and you might well eliminate your upper forearm pain when curling.

Also, learn how to stretch your forearm to relieve your tight forearm muscles after training. This can get rid of toxins and lactic acid, as can using a foam roller on the various forearm trigger points , which you can identify via self-massage.

If your forearm hurts when curling, then that pain is most likely coming from the flexors, which reside on the underside of your forearms. This way, you make it very difficult to cheat. More training volume only produces more muscle growth up to a point. And this point, as you might have guessed, is something that scientists have been debating for years and will likely continue to argue about for centuries.

But outside of the laboratory, more and more lifters realize that a few hard sets can produce remarkable hypertrophy. This is especially true for an exercise like biceps curls, where the target muscle is always going to the liming factor. So, if you've got pain in your forearm when doing curls, you should always perfect your form before dismissing a particular curl variation as injurious. Also, some people just expect curls to hurt their forearm before even trying the exercise, which could actually make the pain more psychological than physiological.

When I switched over to dumbbells, however, I no longer got any forearm pain when curling. It completely went away. My pain reduction could well have been due to the different positioning and muscle activation. So whether you have inner forearm pain from bicep curls or discomfort on the outside, rest up, get it checked out if it persists, and then protect against future flare-ups by using good form.

Simple solutions for pain-free curling. Written By Liam Brown. If you found it helpful, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow on Instagram for more daily training and nutrition tips. If you need further help getting onto the right track with your fitness goals, you can also sign up for a free customized program from me here:. Sean Nalewanyj. Just type and press 'enter'. Arms , Training. Suggested Articles. Featured Comment. Sean Nalewanyj is a best-selling fitness author and fitness coach who has been publishing evidence-based, no B.

You are free to move in multiple planes of motion when using the dumbbell. I recommend switching to dumbbells for bicep curls, at-least until your pain goes away. Maintaining strong functional wrist are a must! Especially if you are going to be lifting weights long term. The wrists are extremely important and often overlooked. So you do not want to neglect your wrist, and it is important to protect them when lifting heavy weights.

I recommend incorporating some direct wrist exercises into your weekly routine. This will help eliminate the wrist pain, and will prevent future wrist injuries from occurring. Some of the best ways to strengthen your wrist are with a simple forearm grip kit. I highly recommend using a set of finger bands to work on your forearm extensors. We are gripping things all day long so the forearm flexors get overworked compared to the forearm extensors.

So the finger extensor bands are a great way to help strength the forearm extensors and fix this imbalance. Another great product to add into your arsenal is a pair of fatgripz. These can be attached to dumbbells, barbells, and most other pieces of gym equipment.

The fatgripz will increase your grip strength and improve your wrist stability. I recommend trying these out, especially if your wrist are hurting during bicep curls. All these products will strengthen your wrist, and prevent future injuries. If you go to a popular gym you will see some guys putting on wrist wraps before performing a heavy set of bicep curls or bench press.

Wrist wraps can actually be extremely helpful when doing heavy lifting movements. Let me explain why. Like I stated earlier the main reason your wrist hurts during bicep curls is due to poor wrist positioning. So the reason wrist wraps are helpful is that they prevent your wrist from going into these extreme ranges.

When you apply a wrist wrap, the wrist is held in a strong neutral position. The wrist wrap can actually prevent your wrist from being placed in these harmful positions.

Check out my article on wrist support while lifting. Listed above are my top wrist wraps to wear when lifting heavy weights. I do not recommend wearing them all the time, but for heavy lifts or movements that put a lot of pressure on the wrists.

Movements such as bicep curls, bench press, shoulder press, and even handstands. Make sure to put on the wrist wrap fairly tight so that your wrist is nice and supported.

This will help maintain a strong neutral position.