If you have difficulty doing push ups because you’re missing wrist range of motion, this blog is for you. 

Wrists can be limited, like any other joint, by muscle and capsule. A reminder; capsules are the ligamentous ‘sack’ around all joints. They can stiffen from lack of movement or injury. Muscles get stiff from underuse, or overuse. Or, as I like to say, ‘a weak muscle gets overused faster’. 

Most people will get stiff in wrist extension. That is the position your hand needs to be in to do a push up.

To address the muscle, you can stretch like this:

To address the capsule, you’ll need a thick band:

For wrist flexion, you can stretch the muscle like this:

And to address the capsule:

By the way, limited wrist range of motion can turn into elbow pain. Much like a knee problem is really an ankle problem, the same can occur in the arm.

If you’re having some elbow pain, and you think it may be coming from your wrist, check out this program which addresses all range of motion in the arm.