What the catch asks of the wrist, and what no study has measuredEmerging evidence
In a clean, you pull the bar from the floor or the hang, jump, then pull yourself under and whip your elbows round so the bar lands on the front of your shoulders. A weightlifting coach writes that "the barbell must be supported directly by the trunk", with a fairly loose grip, because "A very tight grip will nearly always cause the elbows and shoulders to drop". With the elbows high and the hands just outside the shoulders, the wrist bends a long way back.
In the one study that comes close, 20 CrossFit athletes had their resting range measured and their clean filmed 7 months later: the 8 rated as catching well had about 93 degrees of wrist extension at rest against about 83 in the 12 who didn't, and more outward shoulder rotation, but they had also trained longer and more often, and no pain was measured. Daily tasks fit within about 60 degrees of wrist extension, as our wrist joint page explains.
Nothing measures the wrist angle or load during a catch, and no study counts wrist pain from cleans or tests a grip or swap against it. So the map on this page is our reading of what each cause is known to do.
Sources 1, 2
How common wrist and hand problems are in liftingEmerging evidence
The hand and fingers made up 15.3% of weightlifting injuries in an updated review, which doesn't count the wrist separately; the wrist and hand are among the five commonest injured sites across the weight-training sports. In CrossFit, 11% of injured athletes in one large survey had hurt a wrist; in a smaller one, 2 of 4 wrist injuries happened in the Olympic lifts, which weren't split into the clean, snatch and jerk. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic weightlifting venue, fingers and wrists were 28.7% and 13.8% of training-floor treatments, mostly tape and ice.
Most weightlifting injuries are minor overuse problems: weightlifting causes about 2.4 to 3.3 injuries per 1,000 hours of training, low next to contact sports, and in 6 years of US Olympic Training Center records 90.5% of injuries needed 1 day or fewer off. Elite weightlifters' injuries were mostly the lower back and knees. Of 270 CrossFit athletes, 20.4% had ever hurt a hand or wrist, mostly the wrist, and 29.1% hurt the same area again; 28.8% of 868 female Masters weightlifters reported hand or wrist joint pain, slightly more with heavier lifting.
Sources 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
The back of the wrist and the little-finger sideEmerging evidence
An expert review of pain in the middle of the back of the wrist in athletes describes the joint lining being pinched, made worse by full extension and loading the wrist bent back, with normal X-rays, and says most cases settle with 2 to 3 months of rest, a splint and anti-inflammatory medicines. It also covers a hidden ganglion, a wrist ligament and Kienböck's disease, which is most common in men aged 20 to 40. In one competitive weightlifter, wrist pain worse with extension in training was inflammation around the finger and wrist extensor tendons; that is a single case.
Pain on the little-finger side points to the triangular fibrocartilage complex (TFCC) or the tendon beside it. In 72 people with TFCC tears and a stable joint, treated without surgery, 30% had fully recovered at 6 months and 50% at a year, and across 8 studies (425 people) non-surgical care did about as well as surgery.
Sources 13, 14, 15, 16
The thumb and the hook gripEmerging evidence
In the hook grip, the fingers wrap over the thumb against the bar. In 11 trained men who already used it, every one power cleaned more with the hook grip than with a closed grip, and the gain came from a quicker turnover and catch, not a stronger pull; for lighter pulls without a catch, the authors say the grip may not matter. No study, survey or case series has looked at thumb pain or thumb injury from the hook grip, and our power clean guide says it hurts your thumbs at first, so build up to it.
A thumb wrenched back or sideways is different: the British Society for Surgery of the Hand (BSSH) says a partly torn thumb ligament is usually splinted or put in a cast for six weeks.
Sources 17, 18, 19
Nerves and the bent-back wristStrong evidence
Bending the wrist fully back raised the pressure in the carpal tunnel from 2.5 to 30 millimetres of mercury in healthy wrists, and from 32 to 110 in people with carpal tunnel syndrome. In 37 healthy people, a quarter passed 30 by about 33 degrees of extension, and the pressure was lowest with the wrist almost straight; in cadaver hands it stayed near its starting level for small bends and climbed past 5 times that at 50 degrees.
A catch or a rack goes much further back, so tingling there is a nerve complaining, not a stretch (our reading). Tingling in the ring and little fingers with the elbows bent deep points to the ulnar nerve.
Sources 20, 21, 22, 23
Bone, growth plates and missed liftsEmerging evidence
A review of bone stress injuries in athletes lists the forearm bones in weightlifting and gymnastics, says plain X-rays may be normal early and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is most useful, and describes gymnast's wrist as stress around the growth plate from repeated loading bent back. One adult weightlifter had stress fractures of both forearm bones (ulnae) after increasing his training. No series in young weightlifters was found, so the teenager's line on this page is a precaution borrowed from gymnasts.
In US emergency departments, dropped weights and crushes were the commonest cause of upper limb weight training injuries, and the wrist made up 8.2%; in under-19s, most weight training fractures came from improper use such as dropped weights, mostly in fingers and toes. The BSSH says a wrist sprain usually follows a fall that bends the wrist backwards, and across 8 studies of 1,685 injured wrists with a normal first X-ray, 9.0% had a hidden scaphoid fracture and no single sign ruled one out.
Sources 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29
Who gets it
In our reading: people new to the clean or the hook grip, or adding load or volume quickly, such as CrossFit cycles of cleans, thrusters and handstands; people with stiff wrists, shoulders or upper backs who catch the bar in their hands; people who grip tightly or catch with slow, low elbows; and people coming back after a missed lift or a fall on the hand. In female Masters weightlifters, hand and wrist pain was slightly more likely with heavier lifting.
Sources 12, 11
When a scan or test mattersStrong evidence
Not at first for gradual pain without warning signs: the NHS starts with looking after it at home, and a GP if it hasn't improved after 2 weeks. After a missed lift or a fall onto the hand, the NHS says a wrist that might be broken probably needs an X-ray, and NICE says consider MRI first for a suspected scaphoid fracture after a thorough examination.
A deep central ache that keeps coming back, or loading pain with a normal X-ray, may need an MRI for a hidden ganglion, Kienböck's disease or a bone stress injury. Clicking or instability on the little-finger side that hasn't settled after a good trial of rehab needs a hand specialist.
Sources 30, 31, 32, 13, 24, 15
How it usually goesEmerging evidence
No study follows wrist pain from cleans. Most weightlifting injuries are minor, with 90.5% needing a day or less off in one training centre. In the CrossFit survey, most people were back to full training within a month, but more than half didn't feel fully healed by then and 29.1% hurt the same area again, which argues for building back gradually.
Pinching at the back of the wrist usually settles in 2 to 3 months, half of TFCC tears fully recover within a year, a ganglion can take several months to a year, and a broken wrist usually takes 6 to 12 weeks. No one can promise a date.
Sources 7, 11, 13, 15, 33, 31
