Tenosynovitis

[RRod]

Hi Rip,

Any experience with wrist tenosynovitis? Last Feb. I put up with an acute case of it brought on during a competition snatch. The MRI instant replay showed "prominent tenosynovitis of the extensor carpi radialis brevis and longus tendons and extensor pollicis longus tendon". I remember feeling a mild but nagging pain in my left wrist after my third snatch, but I was able to do my jerks. After competition, any extension/flexion hurt like hell. After the initial ouch, any complete extension of the wrist was painful, as watch stretching the extensors.

I got the typical treatment of a shot and rest (kept my shoulder/pressing strength up by doing bench and being a good boy about keeping my wrists straight). After the wrist healed up (about a month), everything seemed ok. Well a couple of weeks ago I got the same affliction in my *right* wrist, again during a snatch (this time a heavy training single).

I've got my chiro doing ART on the associated muscles, and I'm using heat/ice/stretching (forget the damn shot). Any insight you can give on possible causes and treatment? All the doc could come up with is "well you do weightlifting, which is of course bad, m'kay." Other conjectures have been: lack of aggressiveness in holding the bar up top; too wide a snatch grip; having wussy forearms; bad luck; and "once you heal the wrist will get stronger and it won't happen again". At this point, I have no reason to doubt any of them.

Thanks for any help!

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'd have to see you snatch, but it may be a very fundamental form problem associated with an arm pull. There could be a small part of your brain that thinks the snatch is pulled into position with a wrist extension, and this motion could have produced the injury at a third-attempt intensity. It could also be that you're racking the bar too far back on your hand. This sometimes happens if you lose your hook as the bar racks. Investigate these possibilities.