Howzit. I sprained my thumb pretty badly about 3 months ago during a Kung-Fu. Luckily no surgery was needed, but it took a really long time to heal. It was feeling alot better and pretty strong for about a month and then in training it happened again. The impact that it took wasn't all that hard, but enough to keep it hurting and me off training for about a week now, and I reckon I'll have to lay off it for a further week or so. Now this is getting really frustrating. A friend of mine that plays volleyball has the same problem. She sprained her thumbs badly, and they just never seem to get 100% better. I can't put up with that though as it's really effecting my training (mainly Muay Thai). I can't even make a proper fist anymore. What would be good ways to maybe stengthen my thumb to make it less prone to sprains? Thanks
Hey mate i did the same thing while cross training in boxing, But i did both thumbs in one training session! i think it was from body rips which my opponent dropped his elbow onto, it affected everything i did, from weights to working. The Physio got me independantly moving each joint in the thumb mainly the saddle joint at the base of your thumb, using your other hand to isolate it. This helps return normal range of motion, so you can make a fist properly
OK, so I kind of did the same thing last night. I threw a right cross, missed the focus pad and punched my partner in the chest (which was, of course, freakin hilarious. For me). But my thumb caught the edge of the pad (hard Thai pad) and kind of sprained it... so it's a litle swollen from the base up to the first knuckle, and it hurts to do...well, pretty much anything with my thumb. I can make a fist, but I'm weary of punching anything! Does anyone know of anything like compress bandaging that can help here? Icing is not feasible with my job (I need both hands all the time), but a tight wrap or icy-hot bandage might be OK. If it works on your ankle (for example) is there any reason why it shouldn't work on your thumb joint?
Yeah, that's what happened to me the first time. I wanted to uppercut a focus pad (kung-fu...no gloves), missed, and my thumb caught the edge of the hard pad. I thought I broke it. My hand shook the whole way home...I was in agony. I squeezed a ball and stretched it and everything and it's doing great now. I just recently hurt it while snowboarding...fell on my backside onto my thumb somehow. Luckily plenty of snow around to ice it.
You may wanna give trigger point massage a go, I fractured my thumb sometime last year, it healed up fine, but was still sore whenever I gripped anything or used my thumb for anything, I figured it was still healing and would go away with time. I kinda got tired of waiting for it to sort itself out so I thought I'd look for some trigger points to speed things up, found a few in the muscles surrounding the thumb and massaged them a few times a day for 2-3 days, problem sorted. I think a lot of the time, these sort of injuries tend to strain the muscles of the fingers/thumb, as they are relatively small compared to the impact that they take, as such the muscles spasm and knot up setting up trigger points and causing problems. The thumb massage bit is very easy, but can be quite painful, if you imagine that your thumb is like a chicken drumstick, you wanna feel around all the fleshy bits for small painful areas, one you find them concentrate your massage on them, they may be on the inside of the palm, or outside, or even in the area between the thumb and index finger, basically all around. Hope this helps! Good luck! P.S. I would not go on a strengthening program for your thumb(s), until the trigger points and the related pain is removed, otherwise the muscles supporting your thumb are still imbalanced and any training is likely to cause more imbalances and potentially set up further trigger points in surrounding tiussue.
Like any other sprain, it has to be immobilized to heal before strengthening; there are some thumb braces that go on the backside of the thumb to the wrist or you can have a hand therapist customized you one. Secondly, damage to the thumb, unless it's in the back towards the base on the wrist, is usually ligamental/cartilaginous sprain, therefore, strengthening does not really work. The reason you can not make a fist is that the tendon that goes to the thumb can not glide to stretch because of a lot of reasons: swelling in the joint capsule, fibrous tissue or scarring development, or your whole hand going into a protective mode to prevent pain or injury. Give yourself a couple of weeks to immobilize the thumb, do isometrics so that the muscles remained toned but not moving the joint, then, see a hand therapist that can probably have you do some paraffin wax treatment before stretching. This is just my suggestion.
