Wrist issue due to ARCing?

[James_E]

First post here, although I lurk all the time. I have been climbing about 10 years and have never had a climbing related injury. I recently started ARCing and have been having some wrist issues since then, although I can't say for sure that it is due to the ARCing. The pain is in the left wrist on the outside. It hurts during certain grips (especially pinches and high left sidepulls), and also when I extend my left arm and try to rotate my hand counter-clockwise (pain starts when my hand is approximately vertical with my thumb on top). Anyone know what this is or what I should do about it? I would like to continue my training so anything I can do to mitigate the problem without taking more than a week or so off would be ideal. Thanks for any feedback!

[MarkAnderson]

James,

I don't have an experience with that particular injury. It sounds like you might just be reaching the limit of your wrist's range of motion, and maybe pinching or stretching some soft tissue in the joint. This tired joke comes to mind:

Patient: "It hurts when I bend my wrist counter-clockwise, what should I do?"
Doctor: "Stop bending your wrist counter-clockwise"

If I had your pain, the first thing I would do is follow the Doc's advice. Next I would start some range of motion exercises to increase the pain-free flexibility of the joint, or at least learn what the pain-free limits of flexibility are. You could try something like a rice bucket (tres chic these days), but I think just using a mixture of 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen would work too.

I certainly would not stop training, I would just avoid grips/positions that make it hurt a lot.

[chris]

Hey Jamese and Mark,

I actually had this same issue and went to a doctor who could not diagnose it. Considering my own history, I think this injury just result from packing in a lot more time on the wall than I had ever done in the past (I have never trained before. People get injuries from really low intensity but repetitive activities. I think that probably a sharp increase in the time you spend on the wall (even if at low intensity) would be enough to cause a repetitive strain injury.