Ways to Prevent Wrist Pain in Common Yoga Poses

When teaching yoga, one common complaint coming from my students is wrist pain. This makes sense since many poses involve putting your body weight into your hands and wrists, which tend to be weak areas. I will say that as you continue to practice these poses, the muscles surrounding your wrists strengthen decreasing your pain. Unless you have a wrist injury, I usually recommend that my students do the poses until their wrists feel slightly sore, and then have them change into a modified version of the pose. Here are my recommendations.

Posture	How to Prevent Wrist Pain
Down Dog	Instead of placing your palms flat on the floor, make fists with your hands, or place your forearms on the mat, coming into Quarter Dog. Or you may benefit from using a wedge, a type of foam block that elevates the wrist, decreasing the amount of bend at the joint.
Sage	Either take pressure off your wrists by bending your top knee and planting your foot in front of your other knee, or rest on your forearm instead, as in this variation of side plank.
Wheel (Full Backbend)	Use the foam wedge I mentioned above, or keep the top of your head resting on the floor. Another great wrist pain remedy is to do your backbend by holding onto someone's ankles. Have someone stand by your head facing you. Place your palms on the front of their ankles with your fingers pointing down. When you lift up into backbend, you're pressing away instead of down, which is much easier on the wrists.

To see more modifications, just read more.

Posture	How to Prevent Wrist Pain
Camel	Try resting one hand on a heel at a time and extend the opposite arm into the air, then switch. Or rest your hands on your hips or in prayer position at your chest and just lean back without bringing your hands to your heels. Whichever variation you try, concentrate on pressing your hips forward, so most of your weight is in your knees and thighs.
Intense East	Bend your knees and do tabletop or place your forearms on the floor as in this elbow plank variation.
Crow	The best remedy for wrist pain in this pose is to spread your fingers wide, and gradually lean your weight onto your fingertips as you lift one leg up at a time. This will help strengthen your forearms and hands, so in time, you'll be able to lift both legs off the floor, holding Crow for one breath, and eventually holding for five or longer. As I said above, practicing this pose will strengthen your wrists and prevent pain.
Handstand	When putting all your weight into your hands in this pose, spread your fingers as wide as you can and concentrate on pressing into your fingertips to take the pressure off your wrists. If that doesn't help, do handstand by placing a block under each hand. This will give your hands something to grip, although you may need help kicking up into this pose.