Most people don’t head into the gym thinking about training their forearms. But if you enjoy sports or activities like weightlifting, yoga, or Pilates, forearm and grip strength are fundamental to your training routine.
Without good grip, actions like holding weights, hanging from bars, or even staying in a downward dog become tough for any time. Think of a deadlift; while you might physically be able to lift a lot of load, you’re only as strong as your grip endurance, meaning poor grip and forearm strength could compromise your workouts.
Grip strength is also functional, translating to everyday activities like carrying the groceries or pulling your bodyweight upward. For this reason, I’ve put together five minutes of wrist stretches you can do from anywhere to help improve mobility and strength in your wrists and forearms.
Watch Sam’s 5-minute wrist stretching routine
This short routine will help improve wrist mobility alongside strengthening.
Any action that requires you to hold weight will require some level of forearm strength. A forearm workout can help strengthen the wrists and muscles in your forearms, and depending on the exercise, also target the biceps and shoulders to help you activate and work the upper and lower arms.
But stretching can improve flexibility, even if just for the short term, helping to mobilize your wrists and arms for movement before a workout, or stretch off any tightness post-workout. Mobility and stretching are brilliant for defending against injury and preparing you to lift heavy or bear weight on your arms for some time, like during Pilates or yoga.
Follow the routine above and try to breathe during each exercise. Stretching your wrists can feel very uncomfortable, but there shouldn’t be sharp or prolonged pain, so I recommend stopping if you experience this.
Remember, this video guides you through the exercises, but you can adjust anything that doesn't feel good, like range of motion. Where I might sit back to deepen a stretch, you can keep your hips lifted and remain in a tabletop position. You can reach deeper into each stretch by moving further into it, like pushing as far as you can forward, back, left or right, or widening your rotations.
The video above is just an example, but you can spend longer on any exercise you think is beneficial and move at your own pace. I recommend around 30 seconds per stretch as a minimum.
Your forearms are actually pretty complex. There are two muscular compartments called the anterior flexors and the posterior extensors, both made up of muscles that act on the elbows, hands and wrist joints to create motion.
When strengthening your wrists, you also need to consider your forearms, which are essential for not just upper limb movement but arm, wrist and finger movement.
We don’t live in 2D, so we shouldn’t exercise in 2D, either. Exercising in all three planes of motion, like flexion, extension and rotation, and also using lateral work, will help you target muscles and joints more evenly. During extension, you lift your fingers toward your forearms; when flexing, you draw your fingers downward toward the underside of your wrist.
As you get older, grip strength can begin to decline, so I recommend clients train grip strength and the forearms using specific forearm workouts or by practicing weightlifting exercises like deadlifts, bent-over barbell rows, pull-ups and hangs.
More from Tom’s Guide
- Forget crunches — a personal trainer recommends these 5 standing ab exercises to strengthen your core
- High reps vs heavy weights, which is better for building muscle?
- Forget the treadmill — boost your metabolism and chalk up 5,000 steps in 30 minutes with this indoor walking workout
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
