Come wayward souls, who wander through the darkness. There is a light for the lost and the meek. Sorrow and fear are easily forgotten, when you submit to the soil of the earth. Grow, tiny seed, you are gone to the tree. Rise, till your leaves fill the sky, until your sighs fill the air in the night. Lift your mighty limbs, and give praise to the fire.
Over the past couple of months I’ve mentioned here and there that I’ve been working on strengthening my hands and wrists in general. I figured I’d make a bit more of a comprehensive post for anyone else that might find it useful!
Towards the tail end of last year, I was getting a lot of pain in my drawing hand. I’ve never let it get as bad as developing carpel tunnel, but I was starting to show a few markers. Like a lot of us, I paid very little attention to the health of my hands for a long time. I feel like you can get away with it for many years. Once I hit my mid-twenties though – that shit really starts to catchup. There’s been a few instances where I just couldn’t draw any more and was completely freaking out internally: ‘holy shit I’m going to fuck up my hand’ etc. I had to take time off to recuperate.
I draw a lot. Not as much as some, but with my day job and freelance on the side I can easily wrack up 210 hours of drawing each month. Sometimes less, sometimes more.
I wanted to find something I could do for my hands to combat the problem, rather than rest being the only option. It’s absolutely a given that you should still take plenty of breaks, make sure you’ve got an ergonomic set-up, do stretches etc. But I’d reached the point where those precautions weren’t really doing enough to prevent pain, and they felt like more of a temporary fix rather than a solution.
Now, to the point. Exercises! I don’t really know why I’d never thought of weight exercises to help with the pain, I guess my natural inclination was always to just rest it instead.
Last year I bought myself a 2KG weight and started doing these exercises. It really didn’t take very long to start noticing a difference. My wrist immediately felt relieved from all the stretches, and after a couple of weeks the pain really started to fade. I’ve gradually moved on to slightly heavier weights, and doing this (exactly what’s in the video!) has made the biggest difference to anything I’ve ever done in regards to wrist health.
These exercises really feel like you’re actually doing something to fight the wear and tear on your hands, and I don’t know about you guys – but I want to be drawing until I’m an old lady!
REBLOGGING BECAUSE YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY REMINDERS!
Kind of overworked myself a little too much lately and went for a physiotherapist checkup. I managed to give myself a sprinkling of tennis AND golf elbow. It’s so me, I can’t choose one.
I figured I’d reblog my previous wrist exercises post because they are FUCKING MAGIC. When I do these – and keep them up – I don’t get any problems. I slack off for a little while (slaps self) and look what happens?!
I’m still working but taking it as easy I can, then I’ll be easing myself back into these exercises slowly (starting with fewer reps). My lovely phsyiotherapist also said these are the perfect stretches for tennis and golf elbow too 🙂
IN SUMMARY. TAKE CARE OF YOUR WRIST. DO THESE.
please please please be careful if you are already dealing with a chronic or repetitive stress injury while doing exercises like this. if you experience pain while doing these exercises stop immediately. please don’t injure yourself further, consult with a doctor or physical therapist.
*points to comment* please don’t do this and make any pre-existing conditions worse. I’m an artist not a doctor
ImmortalWave 