I know my wrists are going to hurt a little from overhead squats.  At 95 lbs, it is bearable.  However, I did the Deadlift/OHS wod last night and I could not hold 135 with my arms as wide as I should without extreme pain in my wrists.

When I say as wide as I should, I am basing my width off of a skills training I attended at a local affiliate last summer.  There, I was instructed to have my arms as wide as I would need to do a pull-through in the event I bailed.  If I move my hands in a little, the pain is bearable, but then I can’t do a full pull-through if I have to. 

Is this normal for someone who does not OHS a lot?  Do I have to work through it?  I tried a full and hook grip.

I hear of more people have shoulder pain from shoulders that are inflexable rather than wrist pain. If it were me I’d just move my hands in to were I didn’t have pain. Generally your OHS grip width will be the same as your snatch grip. Try holding the bar in the hang position, it should be about at the ‘waistband’ of your pants, 2” below your belly botton, several inches above the pubic bone. There is some leeway. Personally I prefer to bail the bar forward if need be.

I agree. Bring them in.
You’ll probably find that you’ll quite quickly gain shoulder flexibility at that width and as for bailing, when you really really have to it’s amazing how much extra stretch joints acquire.

sounds good.  Thanks.  I have been working on my shoulder flexibility already.  I just wanted to know if there was something I should be doing for my wrists.

Oh, good point.

I have huge problems with wrist pain in OHS. I haven’t found anything to fix it yet.
Locking your wrist straight instead of letting it bend back helps, but I find I can’t concentrate on that when the weight gets heavy. I’m finding that a narrower grip is much better in general, both for snatches and OHS even though every measure says I should be right out near the collars.

hhmm, I seem to remember watching a video once, where an instructor said you would get used to it after a while.  But, I have yet to get used to this pain.  I always keep my wrists straight.  I was hoping someone found a fix.  I will keep at it.  Thanks.

I’ve gotten wrist pain as well. I wasn’t too wide either. The bars at my school have a ring to help people who do wide grip bench presses, so I use that for reference by going half a thumb’s length out from it. I found it to narrow to stick my hands just on those rings. I’m still figuring it out.

My arches tend to hurt when doing OHS.  I don’t get this during back squats.  I am guessing that it has something to do with my wider stance given with the OHS…since I also get a little arch pain during SDHP too.  It’s more of a pulling, or soreness during and right after the exercise…then goes away pretty quickly, like within 30 min of stopping.

Anyone get this too?  Anyone know if this is normal, or why I am experiencing this?

I don’t know if this will help you or not, but I’ve had wrist issues, more in general, but it includes when I do OHS.  I took off a week and really focused on doing things that wouldn’t use my wrists much, but that doesn’t seem to help.  Inevitably, there will be a WOD with cleans or OHS that tweak my wrists back again and I have to pretty much start over.

So, I came across this blog post from Adrian Bozman:  http://sanfranciscocrossfit.blogspot.com/2009/02/home-made-support.html (wfs)  about making wrist wraps to help support your wrists while working out.  I followed his advice and made some about 2 weeks ago and use them during every WOD and I don’t have any wrist pain during the WOD.  Afterwards, there may be some slight pain that will go away shortly after, but nothing like I used to experience. 

Also, with regard to the OHS specifically, after my shoulder flexibility improved, I was able to bring my hands in a bit and it helped a lot instead of having them all the way out as I did before.

Hope this helps.

WalterMitty - 09 March 2010 12:46 PM

My arches tend to hurt when doing OHS.  I don’t get this during back squats.  I am guessing that it has something to do with my wider stance given with the OHS…since I also get a little arch pain during SDHP too.  It’s more of a pulling, or soreness during and right after the exercise…then goes away pretty quickly, like within 30 min of stopping.

Anyone get this too?  Anyone know if this is normal, or why I am experiencing this?

This sounds like you may be letting your knees drift in. This could be from inflexibility in externally rotating your femur (hips). With the bar over head there is less slack on the hamstrings and lower back. There is a muscle that connects from the pelvis to below the fron of the knee. If you are letting your knees drift forward (lack of flexibility again) this would cause lower back pain. Watch the midline stabilization series from kelly starret in the journal.

1. No shame in wrapping your wrists.
2. Move ‘em in a bit.
3. Try thinking of punching up and actively holding the support of the bar instead of relying on ligaments to do it. Ideally you want to stack weight on bone on bone - most folks put the bar towards the fingers and just suspend it there.

The punch up thought helped me the most.