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Is joint discomfort normal?
I have an incredibly weak upper body so before I take the plunge and buy my pole I have been working on upper body exersizes (plus flexy 🙂
Today I just started working out my upper body early this morning. Now my wrists and elbows are bothering me. They don't exactly hurt–it's more of a pressure or annoying sensation that makes me need to shake my hand or arm out. I did notice during hold my planks, doing so-called "girl push-ups," and half pull ups that my wrists felt… streched out?? Like I could feel that my wrists were getting tired out.
I did warm up before I got started just to keep blood flowing and avoid injury. Is this normal? I hardly worked out for 30 minutes so I'm hoping I just have to get my body used to it. Let me know what you think 🙂
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3 Replies
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First of all: good for you for building up strength in your body first! 🙂 A couple of things come to my mind about your problem ..
The thing is, that the connective tissue takes longer than muscles to adapt to the increased stress you put on it through exercising. So these are often the "weak links". They get stronger through weight-bearing exercises though, so keep doing what you're doing in general 🙂 And shaking the hands or arms out is not a bad thing and doesn't mean you're in trouble.
However, "joint discomfort" is not really normal and you might want to take some rest if your joints still feel funky after exercising. With my wrists I just go by feel. If during a workout I get wrist discomfort I do some mobility exercises and do some exercises that don't stress the wrist (e.g. you can do planks on your forearms instead of in a full push-up position). Usually after a few minutes I can use the wrists normally again. If not I stop putting stress on them for that day.
Good recovery techniques during exercise sessions include massage, foam rolling, mobility exercises, or different creams/gels that help with injuries (they also help if you don't have an injury^^) for the forearms and wrists.
On a side note, for taking stress off the wrists in the push-up position I focus on pressing with my fingers into the ground instead of resting all the weight on the wrists.
If you work out in the morning your joints aren't as lubricated as they are later in the day, so you need more warm up than normal. For the wrists I like to do some specific warm-up exercises like these here:
http://www.globalbodyweighttraining.com/wrist-mobility-exercises/
Also, if you're preparing for pole dance, you need a lot of grip strength anyway, which will help with strengthening wrists and elbows as well. So it would be a good idea to work on grip strength as well 🙂
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i haven't had anything like that but as RoseMay said – I definitely found when I started that although my actual strength was increasing pretty quick my wrists and joints took longer to get used to the whole pole thing. My instructor suggested those wrist ball rollers – I didn't get end getting any but I know other girls who have them; they are like weighted balls and you just roll them around in your hands and they build up resistance and get your wrists used to handling heavier objects, I guess. Alot of girls who get tendon pain use them. Can't remember what they are actually called though sorry! hope it helps a little though, just an idea 🙂
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Thank you both for your suggestions! I will definitely give my joints rest–I've been rotating upper body/abs with leg strength/stretching exersizes, followed by a day of rest. I will try warming up more, pushing on my fingers, repositioning my arms, and rolling something heavy (I'm sure my husband has something small and heavy enough in the garage). 🙂
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