Pole and aerial injuries in the hand and arm come from holding your whole body weight on your GRIP, often upside down, with the wrist and elbow at the end of their range.
The usual problems are forearm and inner elbow pain from grip overload, wrist pain from loaded bends, palm rips and friction burns, and elbow strain in people who lock their elbows straight.
Skill usually progresses faster than tendons adapt. Most of these injuries happen in that gap.
What the apparatus asks of your hands
- Grip under full body weight. Cup, split and twisted grips on a pole, or fabric and hoop grips in aerial, held for seconds to minutes at a time
- Grip while sweating. As skin loses friction, you squeeze harder to stay on
- Wrists at the end of range. Split grips and handsprings put the wrist into a loaded bend with the body turning around it
- Locked elbows. The twisted grip and some holds tempt people to hang on a straightened elbow, which loads the ligaments instead of the muscles
- Wraps. Silks and straps wound tightly around the wrist and hand press on the soft tissue beneath
- Spin and friction. Skin drags across metal and fabric
- One favorite side. Most people train their strong side far more than the other
You can learn a new trick in a week. The tendon underneath it needs months.
What turns up
- Inner elbow and forearm pain on gripping: golfer’s elbow, the grip tendon overload
- Outer elbow pain: tennis elbow
- Front-of-elbow ache after pulling and inverting: climber’s elbow, the same overload climbers get
- Pain across the back of the wrist in split grips and handsprings: loaded wrist extension. See yoga wrist pain for the same mechanism
- Little-finger-side wrist pain when you twist under load: TFCC injury
- Numbness over the back of the thumb after tight wraps: Wartenberg’s syndrome, a squashed skin nerve
- Palm rips and friction burns: see rips and hand skin and hand burns
- Elbow and wrist aches in very flexible bodies: hypermobility, where the fix is strength and control
- Falls from inverts onto a hand: wrist fracture or scaphoid fracture
The changes that make the most difference
- Keep a soft bend in the elbow in twisted grip and hanging holds. Muscles should hold the position, not ligaments
- Cap inverts and handsprings per session, and add more only after two weeks without next-day pain
- Train both sides. Alternate your first attempt so the weaker side isn’t always the tired one
- Build grip and wrist capacity off the apparatus. Slow wrist curls, graded hangs and loaded wrist extension on a bench, twice a week
- Use grip aids instead of squeezing harder when your hands sweat
- Try a smaller pole diameter if your hands are small. A 40 mm pole needs less grip span than a 45 mm one
- Loosen wraps as soon as a hold ends, and change where the fabric sits
- Leave a rest day between heavy grip sessions
A realistic timeline for grip-tendon pain
- Weeks 0 to 2: drop inverts and long holds. Keep training floor work, spins with short holds, and flexibility. Pain during and the next morning at 3 out of 10 or less
- Weeks 2 to 6: tendon loading off the apparatus. Reintroduce short static holds
- Weeks 6 to 12: inverts back, low repetitions, the soft-elbow rule in place
- Months 3 to 6: elbow tendon pain can take this long to settle fully even when managed well
Get it assessed if
- A pop at the elbow or forearm during a hold, followed by bruising or weakness
- Numbness or tingling in any fingers
- Thumb-side wrist pain after a fall, even with a normal X-ray
- A wrist that clunks when you rotate it under load
- Pain at rest or at night
- Twelve weeks of load changes with no progress
Progress the tendon at its pace, and let the tricks follow.
Every article on this site is written using the Closing Window Method: name the window your condition runs on, find where you are in it, and act while it’s still open.