mr.mma

I have a resonable amount of muscle for my bone structure and have quite a bit of power behind my punches. The problem is that my ankles and wrists are pretty thin, so when i hit the bag at times my wrists can't handle the pressure. Sometimes the bend or it just doesnt feel right. I try things like wrist curls etc. but is there anythin else possible to help streangthen them. please help lol

swisscom

I have the same problem. My wrists are pretty damn thin, that pain you get -- it goes away. It tends to happen when you hook too high right? Well, eventually you'll be conditioned against it. Just suck up the pain right now.

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pittbulldog

Get your self a good set of hand raps (mexican preferrably), and just bring them down past the wrist while you are wrapping.

mr.mma

thanks. Ill try to wrap further down. and your saying that after a while of hitting the bag my wrists will become more sturdy and the pain will lower?
anymore info woould be nice :P

swisscom

Well, it's more skill than conditioning but...
The reason your wrists hurt is because when your punch makes contact, your wrist is already bent. Proper punching technique will eliminate the pain, but also yes, after a while, the pain will reduce more and more until you don't feel it.

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HtTKar

If your wrist is bending like that I would stop what you are doing and focus on your form. It would be better to hit the bag 2 times with proper form than 100 times with sloppy form. You have to focus on keeping your knuckles in line with your wrist, forarm, and elbow. Everything should line up to allow your whole body to absorb the blow. Will the pain go away? maybe, maybe not. You could break your wrist and not be able to train for a long time. So practice on form first. One way that can help is to start doing knuckle pushups on your two front knuckles. Keep doing these for the proper feel of aligning your whole body behind your knuckles. Then try that form on the bag...like your doing pushups against the bag. Then start taking your fist further and further from the bag until you can throw straight heavy punches...at least until you get the hang of it.

If your wrist starts bending..stop. You do not want to practice throwing sloppy punches.

It will work your abs pretty well while your at it.

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gabbah

I totally agree with HtKar. "The pain will go away eventually" attitude is not a good one in my book, it's just stupid. You might just really damage you wrist if you keep doing it wrong.
Just stand in front of the bag and hit it with different kinds of punches, very slow at first, hitting the bag straight on as HtKar described. Then increase the speed gradually, all of the time making sure you're hitting it correctly. It takes patience. After a while, throwing punches with correct technique will feel a lot more natural.

gong fu

im bieng serious here, drink alot of milk and water, and do some conditioning condense your bones. dont use gloves our padding, and just gradually train them, its a long process for ankles and wrists, as the other guys mentioned hit the bag correctly, dont go mad with it, and gradually hit it harder and harder as the days go by you will become stronger, try using free wieghts and experiment with wrist workouts, but it might not be lack of muscle just lack of bone contitioning, you might have weak joints or suffer from early arthritus, do alot of stretching, and only do what your wrists can handle, you might find that your arms and ches can lift something but your wrists strain, use correct posture and placing with your wrists, when curling dont tuck your wrists in leave them straight, lots of people lose posture and placing when they lift heavy, its a bad habbit that only cheats yourself out of results.

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ceestand

To strengthen the wrist, better to do exercises where the action is gripping rather than flexing up and down. Any form of those grip stregthener products is good, even better is doing your free weight exercises with a thick bar or an add-on to increase the diameter of the bars you lift. Wrist curls can create similar problems with your wrists as inproper punching technique would.

swisscom

Well... training your wrists against the pain is good for a major reason:
What if your hand gets choked out, because say the guy moved into your hook. If you're not trained against it, you could break your hand in a worst case scenario. I agree with the proper punching method.. but you have to do a little of both...

expect the worst, hope for the best. right?

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gabbah

Well... if you have enough time, sure you can train your wrists. But personally I think that time can be used much better. People often have a limited time to devote to training of some sort, so you need to set priorities. You will get stronger wrists just from lifting heavy weights anyway, I don't think you need to train them separately.

KZL

I am also slight of bone structure, and I have had issues in the past where I can punch and kick much harder than my body likes. As for this particular wrist issue, you shouldn't been hitting things bare knuckled that much anyway. You should have some form of glove to protect all of those little bones, so pick one that also provides wrist support. Also the hand wraps are a great suggestion. Lastly, form DOES matter in a big big way. You should ensure when you strike that your forarm is in like with the top of your hand so that you don't have odd angles translating down the arm. Your wrist will thank you for this in the long run, as you arn't doing it any favors if it's collapsing under the pressure.

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shirase

Also remember that if it only hurts when you are punching targets above your head that if you are headhunting then there probably wont be very much resistance to your punch. Say your short your weight class and are headhunting at a taller opponent, if you hit him in the head(say he weighs 150 lb.s) it wouldnt be the same as a heavy bag where you just move him a little bit. His head will move to make way for your hand, it wont be very much resistance on your wrist. However im not saying form and general body strenght arent important. Just somethign to think about.

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Balo

I also have had this problem of small wrist bone structure, although I lift alot of weights in my time, which does help, although good techneque is also very important.

However take it from me, if you lift weights, you will grow stronger / bigger and are able to deliver a more powerful punch, then that one time your techneque is poor, you will do serious damage to your wrists, as your frame can not handle the power.

I had to have surgery to re-attach a tendon due to just igoring the pain and carrying on, BAD ADVICE, AND THE ADVICE OF SOMEONE TOO YOUNG TO KNOW BETTER.

PS Always use hand wraps, especially training for MMA as the gloves do not protect the wrist enough.

Drag'n

I had the same problem too. I used taping on my wrist inside the bandages at first, and worked on my form. As my wrists got stronger and form got better I stopped the taping and then eventually the bandages. Now I can punch pads and bags full power without bandages or even gloves. Just take it step by step. I deffinately dont advise trying to train through the pain though. Thats just asking for permanent damage.