Wrist pain: what actually helped me

One thing before we get into it. If your wrist is hurting right now, please rest it. Give it a few days off the mat. What helped me took time, and none of it works if you keep going through pain.

I've learned to manage wrist pain during my practice. It was at its worst right before my 200-hour training. At that point, I was practicing four to five times a week across different environments.

For those who know me, my favorite place to practice (when it's freezing outside) is a heated room. And there's no better place than Modo Yoga in Paris, near Bastille. My favorite teachers are there. My entire practice started there. Yes, I'm probably biased.

This is also a good reminder: always communicate your injuries to your teacher. At the desk when checking in, at the start of class, whenever works. So they know if they should adjust, and how.

The chaturanga problem

By the time I started my training, I had tried everything. Avoiding chaturangas altogether. Fists on the ground. Spreading my fingers wide. It hurt every time I went down, no matter what.

What finally helped was redistributing the pressure. Slowly lift your right palm, shift the weight toward the center and upper part of the hand, then bring it back down. Do the same on the left. It sounds subtle. It makes a real difference. Coming down to the knees also helps, and there's no shame in it.

Warm-up drills I swear by

If you see me on the mat before class, I'm almost always warming up my wrists. I massage the area by holding each wrist with my thumb and middle finger. I also grab the wrist and gently pull to decompress it. Then I move into tabletop wrist stretches, hands facing every direction.

These drills are genuinely useful for anyone working on crow pose or transitions into inversions. Do them at the end of your practice too, not just the beginning.

The tip that saved my 200 hours

This one came from Ram, my teacher during the training. I mentioned wrist pain on the first day and he gave me the simplest, most effective advice: use a strap.

Ram is one of the kindest people I've ever met. Deeply serious about his practice, but also genuinely fun to be around. He had the whole class laughing, especially the two guys in the room. I learned so much from watching him teach. But this one tip alone changed everything for me.

Fold the strap into a straight line and place it under your mat. It creates a slight lift that takes the pressure off your wrists during weight-bearing poses. Without it, I genuinely don't think I could have kept up with Ashtanga and all those transitions at 5am every morning.

Use your props. Always. And when someone finds a creative way to use one, that's worth sharing.

Got a tip like this that helped your practice? I'd love to hear it.