If you’re somebody who experiences wrist pain during push-ups, it can be extremely annoying. Push-ups are one of the most fundamental bodyweight exercises, yet something as simple as wrist discomfort can make them difficult or even impossible to perform.
Wrist discomfort during push-ups is also fairly common, especially if you’re just starting to train or you’re not used to putting much weight through your hands.
In this article, we’ll look at some of the reasons your wrists may hurt during push-ups, what you can do to continue training around the problem, and how you can gradually make the position more comfortable.
Why You Have Pain
1. Limited Wrist Extension
One of the first things I would look at is your wrist mobility.
During a regular push-up, your palms are flat on the floor while your wrists are bent backward into what’s called wrist extension.
The problem is that you’re not only asking your wrist to bend quite far backward. You’re also putting a large percentage of your bodyweight on top of it.
If you can’t comfortably bend your wrist to around 90 degrees without any load, putting your bodyweight on top of it probably isn’t going to make it feel any better.
You can test this pretty easily.
Place your palm flat on a table and try to bring your forearm toward a vertical position while keeping your palm down. Don’t force it. You’re just trying to see how comfortable that position feels.
If you already feel very restricted or uncomfortable, limited wrist mobility could be part of the reason push-ups bother you.
2. Your Wrists Aren’t Used to the Load
Another possibility is simply that your wrists aren’t used to supporting that much weight yet.
This is especially relevant if you’re just starting to work out.
Think about how much weight you normally put through your hands during everyday life. Probably not very much.
Then you start training and suddenly you’re asking your wrists to support a big percentage of your bodyweight for multiple sets of push-ups.
Just like basically everything else in training, you need some time to adapt.
This is also why I wouldn’t immediately force yourself to do full push-ups from the floor if they hurt.
Start with less load and work your way up.
3. It Could Be Something Else
If your wrist mobility is good and you’ve already been training for a while, there could obviously be something else causing the pain.
You could be dealing with an irritated tendon, ligament, previous injury or another issue around the wrist.
At that point, I wouldn’t try to diagnose it yourself based on an article you found on Google.
Especially if the pain is sharp, started after an injury, keeps getting worse or bothers you outside of push-ups as well, getting it checked by a professional makes more sense than repeatedly stretching and hoping it disappears.
How Can You Do Push-Ups Without Hurting Your Wrists?
The good thing is that even if regular push-ups currently hurt, you don’t necessarily have to stop doing push-ups altogether.
There are a few ways you can change the exercise.
Elevate the Heel of Your Palm
One simple trick is to slightly elevate the heel of your palm.
By putting something stable underneath this part of your hand, your wrist doesn’t have to bend as far backward.
I like to think about it similarly to elevating your heels during a squat.
If you don’t have enough ankle mobility to squat comfortably, putting something underneath your heels changes the angle and makes the movement easier.
Here we’re basically doing the same thing with the wrist. Obviously, make sure whatever you’re using underneath your hands is stable. You don’t want something slipping out from underneath you in the middle of a push-up.
Use Parallettes or Push-Up Handles
This is probably my favorite workaround.
When you use parallettes or push-up handles, you don’t have to place your palms flat on the floor at all.
Instead, you grab the handles and can keep your wrists almost completely straight.
So if bending your wrists backward is what’s causing the discomfort, this can make a huge difference.
You also don’t need anything particularly fancy. A basic pair of solid push-up handles or parallettes is enough.
👉 Check the ergonomic push-up bars I recommend
What About Push-Up Boards?
You’ve probably also seen those push-up boards with different colored handle positions all over Amazon and social media.
Personally, I wouldn’t buy one just because your wrists hurt. I’ve actually owned and tested one myself and wasn’t a big fan of it.
If you’re considering buying one anyway, you can read my push-up board review where I explain what I liked and didn’t like about it.
Start With Incline Push-Ups
Another really simple option is to make the push-up easier.
Put your hands on a bench, table or another stable elevated surface and perform your push-ups from there.
The higher your hands are, the less of your bodyweight you have to support.
This gives you an easy way to control how much load you’re putting through your wrists.
Once that feels completely comfortable, you can gradually use lower surfaces until eventually you’re back on the floor.
How to Improve Your Wrist Mobility for Push-Ups
All of these modifications can help you continue training, but if limited wrist extension is actually your problem, I would also work on improving it rather than avoiding the position forever.
And you don’t need to do anything complicated.
Get onto your hands and knees and place your palms flat on the floor.
From there, slowly shift your body forward while keeping your palms down. You should feel the stretch around your wrists and forearms.
Move forward until you feel a comfortable stretch, come back, and repeat.
You can also spend some time gently holding the stretched position.
The important part is that you don’t immediately try to force as much range as possible.
You’re trying to gradually make your wrists more comfortable in that position, not win a wrist stretching competition.
And once the mobility improves, you can gradually add more load.
You could progress something like this:
Hands and knees → high incline push-ups → lower incline push-ups → regular floor push-ups
That way you’re working on both sides of the problem: getting comfortable with the wrist position itself and gradually getting your wrists used to supporting more of your bodyweight.
Streching For Wrist Pain During Push-Ups
I think it’s worth trying to stretch, especially if your wrists simply feel stiff when you start training.
Spend a couple of minutes warming them up and gently moving into wrist extension before your first set. Then see how your push-ups feel.
If they suddenly feel much better, that’s useful information. But don’t confuse a stretch with sharp pain.
If stretching your wrist hurts or consistently makes the problem worse, I wouldn’t keep forcing it because somebody told you that you just need more flexibility.
At that point, there may be something else going on.
Lets Recap
If your wrists hurt during push-ups, the first thing I would check is whether you actually have enough wrist extension to comfortably get into the position.
If you do, then think about load. Are you new to push-ups? Did you suddenly start doing a lot more of them? Are your wrists simply not used to supporting your bodyweight yet?
While you’re working on it, you can still train.
Elevating the heel of your palm, doing incline push-ups or using parallettes can all reduce the demands on your wrists.
And if mobility is the issue, gradually work on your wrist extension while slowly adding more load over time.
You shouldn’t need to force yourself through wrist pain just because push-ups are supposed to be a basic exercise.
If the pain is significant, persistent, getting worse or started after an injury, get it checked rather than assuming that more stretching will fix it.
