0:00
When I started riding BMX bikes, I was having a lot of fun. I'd get hurt from time to time
0:04
but ultimately it was a great experience. It seemed to happen about six months to maybe a
0:08
year in, I started having really bad wrist pain. I'd go off a drop, my wrist would kill me. I'd
0:14
squeeze my handlebars, my wrist would kill me. Wrist pain is something that's really common for
0:18
BMX riders, and there are a few things that I did to avoid getting wrist pain later on
0:23
I'm going to break it down in this video and help you understand what might be causing your wrist
0:27
pain and what you need to do differently in order to avoid it. So let's get right into it
0:31
Biggest culprit of wrist pain is PSI. And this is going to sound counterproductive because I ride a really high PSI, but my riding
0:43
style has changed and the PSI that I ride fluctuates with that riding style. Okay. So
0:49
typically riding street, you're going to want to have a lower PSI. I would ride something like 60
0:54
because I'm 220 pounds and doing big drops, I want my tires to compress a little bit
1:01
and to give me some cushion for that, okay? If you're a heavier guy, you can go up from 60
1:06
If you a lighter guy you can go down from 60 But me at my weight if I get on a friend bike who riding 45 or 30 it feels like I touching the rim and you don want it to do that but you do want to let some air out of your tires so that when you do big drops when you street riding you have some cushion and so consider that consider
1:23
if your tires have way too much psi for what you're riding now when i'm riding park i'm landing
1:28
smoothly in transition and i can bump it up to 80 or even 100 because i'm not taking a lot of
1:34
impact on your wrist. Street riding is naturally pretty brutal on your wrist and so the biggest
1:39
thing that I would recommend for you if you're having wrist pain and you're riding street
1:43
is to let some air out of your tires. Try something that finds good. You just want them to be low enough that it feels good when you do
1:53
drops but not too low that your rim touches the ground when you do a bunny hop or when you do a
1:57
drop. This here on the screen shows some basic tire pressure recommendations based on your weight
2:02
Again, a big thing here is personal preference. So try it out, ride it, see what feels good, and adjust it as you go
2:08
Eventually, you'll find something that's perfect for you. The second thing is how you're actually gripping the handlebars
2:14
When I was working at Woodward, I'd see kids who gripped the handlebars in all kinds of different ways
2:19
Luckily I was pretty normal with how I grip the handlebars I had to adjust my wrist back just a little bit over time and that helped my wrist pain a lot but look at how you gripping them okay
2:31
This is the proper way to grip your handlebars. Some people ride with their hands like this
2:35
where it's like throttled back really far, and that is not gonna be good on your wrist
2:39
and neither is the alternative where you have your wrist rolled really far forward
2:43
Ultimately, when you think about it, you're putting weight from your chest and from your upper body straight down your arm
2:48
onto your wrist, And so your hand should be just like you're doing a pushup
2:52
You should be able to hold your hands on your handlebars and like do a pushup and that should feel pretty normal
2:58
You don't do a pushup like this. It doesn't work, okay? You don't do a pushup like this
3:02
It doesn't work. So hold your grips just like you're doing a pushup. Here's an example
3:07
Here's the right way to hold your grips. Make sure you're doing that. If you're not doing that and you start to do that
3:12
you're gonna notice a big difference in your wrist pain in like a month
3:16
The third thing that helped my wrist pain was just getting used to it
3:19
And I don't mean getting used to the wrist pain, but getting used to the riding. When we're riding BMX, we have a lot of things and we really throw our bodies out of whack
3:27
and we put our bodies through a lot. Okay. You think about how you stand on the pedals with one foot in front of the other
3:32
and then you doing drops and you pumping You constantly compressing your hips in like an awkward stance okay And BMX riders tend to have misaligned hips If you go to the chiropractor
3:43
you've been riding for a while, they're going to tell you your hips are misaligned and they're going to straighten them out. And that's just a BMX thing. And so is the wrist pain and so is the
3:51
pressure on your wrist. Most normal people don't grip something for two to three hours a day and
3:56
put constant pressure from their chest onto their wrist. Like that most normal people don't have
4:01
that experience. And so it's natural for your body to have wrist pain as you adjust to it
4:06
After, I don't know, I think I started getting wrist pain really bad in the first three months
4:11
maybe at the four month mark. After about a year of riding pretty consistently, that all went away
4:16
And then it was only if I fell on my wrist or I fell pretty hard that I would get that wrist pain
4:21
But typically after that year mark, my body had adjusted. I built the muscles and just, I don't
4:26
know, everything was used to it. Okay. So that would be the third thing. Just stick it out
4:30
keep riding and get used to it. If you have excruciating wrist pain, it's always a good idea
4:35
to put some ice on it, take a few days off. You don't want to break your wrist just trying to
4:39
ride a lot. It's okay to take some time off, it's okay to relax, and it's okay to recover
4:44
So if your wrist pain is really bad, take a few days off before you apply these tips
4:49
and before you start riding again
