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Andrew Knight is a Yoga Alliance instructor and multi prop flow artist. In this video, he presents some key wrist warmups for flow artists of all sorts. Stretching before spinning can increase flexibility, increase strength and most importantly prevent injury.
These stretches can be done either sitting or standing depending on your preference. You can use all of them or just the ones you like, so just find what works well for you.
We start with raising our arms up to shoulder height straight out like a zombie, rotate both wrists down towards the ground and pause, then rotate both wrists up towards the ceiling and pause. Then we will do the motion again using the other hand to gently pull each hand towards our body with our arm in the same position. Only take it to a slight resistance with the other hand not so much pulling only gently helping the stretch. Continue the up and down motion and assisting with the other hand on both arms.
The next motion involves putting your palms together like a prayer in front of your chest or “namaste” hands, gently apply pressure and push both wrists together and slightly downward. Then you will rotate the hands from facing up to facing down. After that you will reverse the palms so one hand is facing up and the other is facing down, again slight pressure together. Take that motion and rotate it once more. The last bit to this is switching the reverse of the palms so one is facing up, one facing down other side. Apply gentle pressure and rotate again to finish the prayer or namaste hands style of wrists warm up.
This next pose is a great one for your wrists and your shoulders. Make sure you are standing/sitting tall with your shoulder down and back and upright chest. Interlock your fingers in front of your body then push them down towards your waist. Stick your thumbs out like you are trying to make an L with your finger and thumb with the interlock. Apply outward pressure through the interlock and slowly rotate your arms up until they are over your head. You might feel some resistance in your shoulder go slow and steady to work through this stretch. Then take your hands and reverse the interlock of the fingers and repeat the sequence.
The last warm up is a fun one in this series, bring your arms up and out to shoulder level like a zombie again. Then start to rotate your wrists in small circles to loosen them up while keeping your arms straight. You might notice that you can do all of the standard timings of circles with props. Challenge yourself to see if you can do all of them.
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