Wrist Stretching for Gymnastics Warm Ups

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m Heather McCanna on behalf of expertvillage.com and I’ll be discussing in this clip gymnastics warm-ups, specifically wrist stretching. After you finish with your ankle and Achilles stretches, you should move on to another important joint, your wrist. Now, you’re going to clasp your hands together in a pray position and simply rotate one around the other, allowing them to get a free moving range of motion. After doing this for about 10-15 seconds, you should do them in a wave pattern. Again, allowing them to move as freely as possible but in a different direction. Continue this for about 10-15 seconds, then switch and move in the other direction. After this, you should lay your hands flat on the floor, still on your knees and flip your hands over with the top of your hand on the ground and your fingers facing backwards. Try and push as hard as you can to stretch this upper part of your wrist. After holding this for a few seconds, gradually spin your hands with your fingertips facing further and further towards the front of your body. Eventually, when you get them back to a forward facing position, you should repeat this but with your hands facing downward, still fingertips facing behind with your hands flat on the floor. Continue to rotate your fingertips forward until they get to a forward facing position. At this point, you should continue to move your wrist in a circular fashion on their own and make sure that you don’t hear any kinds of popping or moving, which will indicate that you have not completely stretched your wrists. In the even that this happens, you should repeat the process one more time but be sure not to overstretch your wrist, as they are weak joints and they’re not meant to be constantly stretched or overworked. "