Muscles in motion: Reverse wrist curl

BECAUSE wrist flexion is so important in body building and many other sports the extensions are usually ignored, however, they play an important role in maintaining correct muscle balance at the wrist.

You also need well developed wrist extension to hold the hand in the correct position while doing various activities with the hand and fingers. To most effectively develop the wrist extensions hyperextensions do the reverse wrist curl.

Major muscles involved

In the reverse wrist curls the extensor carpi radials longus and lorevis and the extensor carpi ulmans are strongly involved. The extensor carpi radials longus is located on the radial side of the upper forearm, just behind the bra chioradials. It originates on the lower third of the lateral supracondylar ridge of the humerus and inserts on the back of the hand on the base of the second metacarpal.

The extensor carpi radials brevis is located just beneath the extensor carpi radials longus. It originates on the lateral epicondyle of the merus and inserts on the back of the hand on the base of the third metacarpal. The extensor carpi ulmans located on the back of the ulnar side of the forearm, originates on the lateral epicondyle of the humorous and the middle third of the ridge on the back border of the ulna. It inserts on the posterior surface of the base of the fifth metacarpal.in the racquet sports, wrist joint extension is most important for backhand shots. Strong wrist extensors are also important for back hand shots.

Strong wrist extensors are also important for precise movements when executing wrist flexion. The main finger extensors are also assistant wrist extensors. If these muscles are weak you would have difficulty holding the hand in position when doing precise movements with a ball, baseball bat, golf club etc. also the wrist extensors are often needed for the preparatory action to load the wrist flexors before they can act powerfully.

Comments

1. To be maximally effective, reverse wrist curls must be done through a full range of the motion. This means that you should move the hand through 100-150 degrees of motion, with the exact amount depending upon your flexibility and the amount of weight used. If however, you find that you are moving your hands through only about 45 degrees then you are using too much weight or have too tight a grip. The heavier the weight the stronger the grip needed to hold the weight. Since the main finger muscles are in the forearm the tendons that cross the wrist become taught and do not allow any wrist action. Because of this use a released grip while raising and lowering the weight.

2. Since the extncer carpi radials longus and brevis and the extender carpi works cross both the wrist and elbow joints they have an action at each end. Thus to have a maximum contraction at the wrist you must keep the elbow firmly stabilised on the bench.

3. In order for you to elicit a stronger contraction of the muscles involved they should be stretched and tensed before their contraction. You accomplish this at the wrist when you lower the weights maximally to get maximum flexion.

To get stretch and tension in the muscles at the elbow you should keep the arms flexed at a 90 degree or less angle in the elbow joints this is mostly done if you lean over the arms with the upper body during execution. This position also prevents you from involving elbow joint extension bay raising the elbows off the bench to make it easier to raise the weights.