Every day we sit at the desk for more than 8 + hours, our hands constantly hovered over the keyboard, phone, and mouse. This repetitive exercise for both the fingers and hands do not strengthen the wrists. It weakens them, causing a multitude of pain and discomfort that picking up a pen or water bottle from the wrong angle can cause excruciating pain.  

As a Hong Kong Based Professional Personal Trainer, when I first started teaching as a group x instructor in the fitness industry, I always wore wrist support while teaching. This was because my wrist hurt every time I exercised, due to a lack of strength.

After six months of constant support, the brace helped to build strength and was strong enough to be on its own. 

Best Wrist Support – Quick Summary

• Best Wrist Brace for Daily Use: Mueller Wrist Support with Loop
• Best Thumb Brace for Maximum Protection: Mueller Thumb Stabilizer
• Best Wrist Tape for Maximum Mobility: Mueller Athletic Tape
• Best Wrist Wraps for Compression: Neotech Care Wrist Band

Who Should Use a Wrist Support?

Always remember that pain is your body telling you that something is wrong. We strive to live pain-free and sometimes assistance is necessary. You may find wrist support helpful if you fall into one of the below categories:

• Experiencing consistent discomfort within your hands
• Not suffering any pain at the moment but you need to work a lot with your hands and fingers and you want to avoid getting any wrist pain
• Have weak hands and wrist (for example, you’ve injured your hand or wrist before)

Benefits of Using a Wrist Support/ Wrist Guard

As a trigger point therapist running a sports recovery lab in Hong Kong, I gotta say wearing a good wrist offering a lot of benefits, such as:

• Reduce the pressure applying on the joints and prevent injuries from happening
• Provide extra stabilization to immobilize your joints
• Sometimes it may provide compression to your wrist bone, ligaments, and muscles, to help to reduce the swelling
• Sometimes it may provide warmth to your wrist and relax your joint and muscles
• Helps to speed up the healing

Best Wrist Support: What To Consider?

Products that offer support for the body should be carefully chosen. The following aspects should be taken into consideration before choosing the right option for what you need.

Support

This is the most important quality because support is what you need when building strength back to an injured area. It is very important to choose wrist support that fits your needs. 

Put on the wrist support and see if it can help stabilize your wrist and reduce the stress applying on your hands and wrist.

Stabilizing your wrist allows you to complete daily tasks without interfering with the healing process; the reduction of stress to the joints could reduce swelling, further injuries, and pain from happening. 

These 2 functions are vital to the road to recovery. Sometimes people think that braces, wraps, or tape are silly looking or viewed as an unnecessary crutch. It provides support so that you have the fastest recovery possible while reducing your risk to further injury.

Comfort

As these wrist supports are required to be worn at length to heal and become stronger, comfort is a plus. If it’s not comfortable, then you probably won’t habitually wear it every day. It will become part of your day to day routine, accessorizing your outfit and comfort is important to help you remember to wear it.

I have clients having allergy problems after wearing a wrist guard for around 2 days because the material is non-breathable at all and she was wearing it on a very hot summer. So try to choose wrist support made with breathable, washable, and smooth material.

Mobility

If you don’t want your support option to change your day to day routine or affect your exercise regiment, mobility is key. If you feel restricted, this could be problematic and have a negative effect, long term. The fit is important to maintain your accustomed and regular activities without feeling discomfort. 

Best Wrist Support – Our Picks

Wrist Brace – Mueller Wrist Support with Loop

Tried and true, this Muller Wrist Support is the same one that I used to support my wrist. It was dependable and reliable, giving me what I needed to continue my day to day routine without having to sacrifice my normal activities. 

What We Like:

• Non-restricting design for a full range of movement
• Helps to relieve pain while keeping the wrist flexible
• Elastic loop for easy use
• Small enough to avoid the appearance of a serious injury

What We Don’t Like:

• Some clients may find the support offered is not enough

Mueller Reversible Thumb Stabilizer

The Mueller Reversible Thumb Stabilizer is one size fits most stabilizer, I love this one because it provides maximum support to your hand and wrist. It is great wrist support of you are suffering from Hand and Wrist injuries such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Chronic Irritation.

What We Like:

• Breathable fabrics allowing for longer wear
• A reversible option that can be worn on the left or right hand 
• Three adjustable straps for a perfect fit
• Great thumb support 

What We Don’t Like: 

• It is not attractive to wear 

Wrist Tape – Mueller Athletic Tape

A roll of Wrist tap is sort of like a necessity in my gym room, sometimes I have first-time personal training customers coming over to visit me I always ask them to put on these wrist tapes for protection if they told me that they have weak hands and arms. 

The wrist tape is great for offering extra support to your hand and wrist while providing maximum mobility.

What We Like:

• High-quality tape for all sports medicine applications
• Hospital-grade and made with 100% cotton backcloth
• Versatile and comfortable
• Provides great support allowing you to maintain active

What We Don’t Like:

• Time-consuming 
• If not applied properly, it can fall off 
• It’s a disposable product, not so environmentally friendly

Neotech Care Wrist Band

What We Like:

• Highly breathable, ultra-light and comfortable to wear, reducing the risk of repetitive injury 
• Through comfortable pressure and body heat retention, it improves blood circulation and reduces swelling 
• A reversible option that can be worn on the left or right hand 
• 70% nylon 20% polyester 10% spandex and is reusable 

What We Don’t Like: 

• you may order the wrong size like I did… the description written about the size was a bit off

Useful Tips and Resources

• Make sure to always remember to wear the support you need so that you build good habits while you’re healing. The support mustn’t take away from the quality of life you are used to in your schedule.  
• Other than wearing wrist support, trying to stop overusing your hand and wrist is also a good idea. Taking a short break, standing up and shaking your hand a bit every 60 mins after you’ve been seated in front of the computer is a good idea. 
• Sketching your hands and arm also serves great help in relaxing your wrists too, just like what I’ve mentioned in my other articles talking about knee pain and shoulder pain relief, mild exercises and sketching does help a lot.

Conclusion

There is a multitude of benefits that support can provide. It is important to understand exactly what your body needs to put you on the road to recovery. If you forget to wear or incorporate the proper support then it will take even longer to heal, putting you at risk for further injury. 

One thing very important is balance – we don’t want one section outweighing the other too much – if it’s important then try to break it into small subsections.

I hope you find this article useful for choosing the best wrist support and enjoy a wrist pain-free life.