Some sort of hand injury

[donk52]

Over a month ago, I was coming back from a long layoff and probably started press too high. As a result, my hand was very sore immediately after one of the sets when I moved my thumb/put any weight on it in the following area:



This remained very painful for about a week but gradually got better. I didn't lift until I felt better, and then started up again, but lighter. It would hurt on warmups with press or bench in the same area, but then got better. After a while, lifting was mostly painless.

In the last month, the healing has completely stalled. It hurts when I move my thumb a certain way or put a lot of weight on the area, or even just press on it. My press is going up fine without much issue, but the area's still clearly injured in some way.

Anyone have any experience with something similar? While its not that big of an issue, I would like to help whatever it is heal fully. It kind of concerns me that it hasn't gotten better for weeks now.

[Rajesh]

Similar thing happened to me when I bench pressed with a wrong kind of around the bar grip few years back - see the video on youtube where Rip teaches the correct grip for pressing exercises. Pain has been there ever since in the circled area - and my pain is more in the lower 1/2 of circle drawn above. Now, the pain is less when I use a thumbless grip with my affected hand. Pain is also less when I use the grip taught by Rip in the video where the forearm is in more pronated position in the press. There is pain when I do push-ups coz this circled area (thenar eminence) bears quite a bit of wt. since its more elevated than rest of the palmar surface . Pain is also aggravated when I try to grip the bar during squats; I stopped doing it after I watched the video in resources section- 'The squat:bar position'. Here the person demonstrating the bar position doesn't actually grip the bar (see the video) but keeps his palm and forearm in the same line i.e. there is no medial deviation of palm to try and grip the bar - this helped immensely. Seems like a case of arthritis of metacarpophalangeal joint of thumb (basal joint of thumb). A bit of internet search showed that prolotherapy helps with this. I haven't yet tried it but I am gonna try it in the near future.

[Packard]

My opinion is that the thumbless grip is risky. It prevents you from getting the weight on the skeletal system because of the risk of rolling the weight off the hand. So instead of the skeletal system carrying the weight at the wrist, you are laying your wrist back and stressing the tendons in the wrist.

Just because the thumb hurts while doing the pressing motion, does not mean that the injury is caused by that same motion. Look at your other lifts (including rows and deadlifts) which could also affect the thumb.

Unless it is a bone bruise (which can take a very long time to heal), I don't see how a pressing motion could injure that area of the hand. A bone bruise will be tender to the touch, so pressing on the spot with your finger should cause pain. A well-cushioned palm will address this.