I'm going to reveal something embarrassing now. I have small wrists. I know, you thought I'd finally admit to having full blown HIV (or what we in the professional medical community call "AIDS"), but no. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sad to report that my parents again failed me and left me with frail wrists. Somewhere along the lines of my youthful exuberance to have sick grip strength and be able to perform 360* ballistic pull ups I severely injured my wrists. I've talked about that. I failed to go through the proper progressions. Again, live and learn. Since then I've tried a myriad of shit wrist wraps and braces, all which have not worked. That ranges from McDavid to Nike to athletic tape to KT tape and more. All of those products are decent and have their applications, but it wasn't what I needed. Some of the power lifting wraps were great and all, but super bulky and not conducive to what I'm doing.
So what did I do, much later than I should have done? Bought these:
Garage Ink wrist wraps. The support these things give is unreal. On top of that, they don't cut my circulation off even when I tighten them fully. That right there was a major downfall of the Nike and McDavid wraps. Well, that and the support is only good for frail old ladies picking through apples at the grocery store.
I digress, the wraps are well made and I'm actually able to do press movements again. I was even able to carry 90lbs of kettlebells (50lb and 40lb KBs, my gym hates the metric system) in my hand with zero discomfort. I decided to give them a full test yesterday and did a lot of bench pressing and DB pressing. Simply fantastic.
Just how small are my wrists? Well, those wraps are the smallest ones at 12". There is a larger size. Check them out over at Garage Ink Powerlifting. I actually bought them from christiansfitnessfactory.com, but whatever. Side note about CFF.com: good customer service and I received those wraps in 3 days. Not bad. If you go over to the site try not to get too nauseated by the Crossfit (tm) (c) stuff. The kool aid is strong, so be stronger than it.
What else did I get to assist my injuries? Well, this purchase was moreso to prevent injuries. As I said in an earlier post I transitioned too quickly to the minimalist shoes and my knees and feet were a tad sore. So, I scaled back and bought shoes that still provide me what I want in a trainer, but give a tad more cushioning.
"How do the shoes fit? How do they feel? Are you FREE?!"
Good question, self. They fit fantastic and I can't wait to train in them tomorrow. If you're looking at purchasing a Free model, whichever one it may be, just know that the toe box runs very small so you absolutely must go up a size. For instance, I'm a 12 and I had to get a 12.5.
Oh, and yes the tongues on the shoes really do read "CHAMP IS HERE". That's my small dedication to the Mavs. Sure I may suffer from a slight bout of megalomania, but I promise I'm not referring to myself.
So, given the progress I'm making I should finally be able to get back to actually training and writing about the same. I'm a bit tired of these filler blog posts, although they do seem to be a hot topic amongst all the fly ladies around the vending machine at work.
Stay hard.
p.s. Mavs 2011 Champs
I figure I should make a follow up post on this. Those Garage Ink wraps suck donkey balls. The first pair's velcro was losing its grip, and fortunately, or unfortunately, they were stolen. So, like any other dumb American I bought another pair. Guess what? They also lost their ability to hold. They do work fantastic when I use athletic tape over them, which I do every time I use them. That isn't the worst of it though. The velcro is on the wrong side entirely. The hard scratchy shit is on the wrap itself, facing outward. That means any time it brushes on your shorts or shirt it will catch the fabric and start to pull it apart. Yeah. I've destroyed several dry fit tees and mutilated shorts doing KB swings. It doesn't happen when I tape them since it's all covered, but with a little bit of common sense engineering Garage Ink could have discovered that it's best to have the velcro on the straps and the soft shit on the wrap itself, like EliteFTS does with their wraps. Herp-a-derp.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the shoes, they suck. It's a good thing I'm upper middle class and can make stupid drunk purchases and not feel too bad about it. Just kidding. I should have known better. F Nike.