Lifting weights after bone fracture (radius and ulna)

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
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Hello BBM coaches,
One month ago I fell while skiing and broke my left wrist, fracturing both radius and ulna. Initially my injury was treated conservatively with a plaster cast, but after a routine check they found my wrist was not healing well and a couple of days ago I had to undergo surgery to correct the malunion of the distal radius fracture.

My intention with this post is not to ask for a specific assessment of my case, but rather to ask for some general info and recommendations, since I consider you guys as a trustworthy source of information up to date with the latest evidence.

I would like to know for example if there are some tests I can do to understand if my wrist is ready to handle daily activities (e.g. cooking, driving a car) and/or to bear some weight to start training again. In two weeks my cast will be removed and I’ll wear a rigid brace.

I don’t want neither to rush the process nor to prolong it more than needed, infact I would like to be more aware of what I can and can’t do.
I’ll obviously seek for help from a physiotherapist in my country but still it would be awesome if I could educate myself on the subject.

Could you suggest me some readings like articles or papers?

Thanks in advance for your time.

1 Like
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I had similar experiences, would like to hear from the docs too

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Hey man, sorry to hear this happened. Any time surgery is involved for a malunion, I would defer to the surgeon’s advice as serial x-rays are going to be a big determining factor. It tends to be once there is good healing, activities of daily living like cooking and driving are fine and done to tolerance. From there, I would start with some simple wrist exercises like dumbbell flexion and extension and normally begin with something in the 3 sets of 10 at RPE 7 range. It is also normally beneficial if you have been immobilized for a while to work on pronation and supination. The easy way to start this at home is with a hammer. It’s also not a bad idea to find some simple grip exercises and work on those. As far as back to barbell training, the advice here aligns with our general advice that activities are to tolerance. It’s pretty common to feel things tight into wrist extension so sometimes you need to work on pushups first off a box and work down to the ground as that range of motion returns.