maratoolWrist Circles
How to do the wrist circles
- Start by standing straight with your feet being shoulder width apart from each other. Elevate your arms to the side of you until they are fully extended and parallel to the floor at a height that is evenly aligned with your shoulders. Tip: Your torso and arms should form the letter "T: Your palms should be facing down. This is the starting position.
- Keeping your entire body stationary except for the wrists, begin to rotate both wrists forward in a circular motion. Tip: Pretend that you are trying to draw circles by using your hands as the brush. Breathe normally as you perform this exercise.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.
Muscles worked
The muscles under tension are the forearm flexors and extensors, which move the wrist and keep the hand closed around whatever you are holding.
A stretch loads them at the far end of the range they normally work in, so the position you hold is itself the resistance.
Every exercise for:Forearms
How this movement works
One joint changes angle and the resistance travels toward you along a single arc. Nothing is positioned to help, so tension stays where you aimed it and the usable load drops sharply against a multi-joint pull for the same muscle. Protect the range of motion; buying weight by shortening the arc defeats the point.
It is filed under stretching, so the target is range of motion rather than force — a position you can settle into and breathe in, held long enough for the tissue to give.
What you need
No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.
Every exercise using:Body only
These train the forearms too, using equipment this one does not:
- Wrist Rotations with Straight Barbarbell
- Bottoms-Up Clean From The Hang Positionkettlebell
- Cable Wrist Curlcable
- Dumbbell Lying Pronationdumbbell
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 25 forearms exercises in this database, 18 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.