Obviously, I think bodyweight exercise is pretty cool.
You can get a 100% badass workout anywhere, anytime without any fancy equipment.
But one roadblock that a lot of people face when it comes to bodyweight training is a lack of wrist mobility or stability.
Since a big portion of bodyweight exercises require you to have your hands on the floor, wrists extended, and supporting your bodyweight, this can be a big stumbling block for folks who love the idea of bodyweight workouts, but can’t do them without wrist discomfort.
This past weekend I attended a super-cool workshop in Toronto with Dr Eric Cobb, one of the world’s leading experts on reducing pain and increasing performance through re-educating the nervous system and brain to communicate properly.
For most people who experience discomfort in the wrists during bodyweight exercise, the biggest problem is that your brain has practically “forgotten” that the wrists can actually bend back like that.
Chances are, you spend a lot of time tapping away at a keyboard like I’m doing right now. And when you’re not doing that you’ve got your hands glued to a steering wheel or gripping a TV remote.
And because you aren’t using the full range of motion in your wrists, not only does the joint get tight and compacted, but the signals to the brain actually become weak.
Then all of a sudden you go and put all your weight on a wrist that’s fully extended. Your brain senses this and goes, “WHAO there Bucky…! I’m not sure that’s supposed to happen. Let’s throw some pain down there to make sure you take it easy on those wrists.”
Don’t worry though. You can fix this. (We have the technology)
The trick is to retrain your brain to recognize that your wrist can SAFELY move through that range of motion. Once the connection is re-established, you’ll be good to go.
I asked Eric for a specific trick that would be a high payoff exercise for you to try, and he gave me an excellent idea. Check it out…
Cool, right?
By the way, here are some examples of the wrist mobility exercises he referred to in the video.
Dr Cobb is the founder of a system called Z-Health. And it’s all about finding the exact “hacks” that allow you to tap into your full potential by helping the nervous system and the brain get back to optimal function.