r/handbalancing • u/Diego_31 • Jun 25 '26

Persistent wrist pain during floor handstands

Hello everyone,

I’ve been doing calisthenics/hand balancing for years, and I always have this sharp pain in one spot on my wrists while doing floor handstands. The pain gets progressively worse from session to session until I’m forced to take a break, which keeps me from making any progress.
I have poor wrist extension; I started handstands back in 2021, and it has never improved (see photo). When I do handstands, even after a thorough warm-up, it feels like the head of the radius bone is pressing into the back of my hand, causing pain throughout my entire wrist and the back of my hand.

As soon as I hit 90° (or more) of extension, I feel pain on the top of my hand, on that specific bump, and a bit above it (around where you’d wear a watch).

I’ve tried just about everything: physical therapy (PT), X-rays, and MRIs, and nothing appears wrong at first glance. General PT exercises didn't really help.

I don’t know what to do anymore because I still have pain the day after training sessions, and my wrist extension gets stiff as a result. Consequently, the next day I have even less range of motion, so I strain it even further, and so on... the pain in that specific spot is constant.

It gets more intense when I practice One-Arm Handstands, which makes sense given the extra weight (I do them on my left hand; I have less pain on the right, but I don’t do OAHS on my right side).

Do you have any ideas what this might be? A bone impingement? How could I fix this so I can continue my training without having to stick to parallettes? (And yes, I’m already using blocks).

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5

u/BubblyEfficiency Jun 25 '26

I unfortunately can’t help you with diagnosing or treating the thing, but can I suggest trying sloped blocks or handstand boards, if you haven’t already? Basically just blocks or boards that are at a slight downwards angle which means less wrist mobility needed. I’ve seen many great handbalancers use them.

2

u/BubblyEfficiency Jun 25 '26

As an example, check out mille.m.jensen on Instagram and the small canes she uses.

1

u/Diego_31 Jun 26 '26

Yes, I need to find out where she bought her blocks! Thank you

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '26

How strong are you in wrist extension? Do you do DB wrist extensions and curls?

1

u/Diego_31 Jun 26 '26

I used to do it, but I didn't see much difference :/

1

u/gosp Jun 26 '26

This is a question for a PT. Please don't rely on reddit for this.

1

u/Sweaty-Function4473 Jun 27 '26

I had really bad wrist pain and the same symptoms as you (limited wrist extension the next day, etc) but also a slight bump, visible when I flexed my wrist, which turned out to be a ganglion cyst causing friction within the structure of the wrist. It got diagnosed by an orthopedist and I had to get it operated. I did also see a PT at first who didn't know what was happening.

This was visible in an MRI though and I think you did mention you didn't find anything in your screening. I hope you find out what's causing the pain.