Designed to help prevent dorsal hyper-flexion, the Tiger Paw Wrist Support has a replaceable foam pad. To increase the levels of support, extra plastic battens may be inserted in the Velcro pocket.
Tiger Paw Wrist Support – $50 – Gibson Athletic
These have become so popular in North America that they are almost essential equipment for girls over age 12. Yet boys rarely wear them … even though they do much more work on the wrists.
Designed to help prevent wrist pain, the Ezy ProBrace provides strong support in wrist extension and hyperextension but still maintains flexibility. A unique “palmar pad” minimizes the angle to the wrist joint and evenly distributes impact and weight across the palm to cushion high impact forces. Pad is detachable for when the palm of hand needs to be exposed.
Ezy ProBrace by Gibson – $51 – Amazon.com
At my gym over half the older girls wear Tiger Paws. When I quizzed them, they were unanimous:
“If you don’t need them, don’t wear them. But if you do need them, wear them as much as possible. They really reduce wrist pain while training.”
Fad or training essential? Leave a comment if you have an opinion.
==== UPDATE:
From Chris in the comments:
The question that I have is how much are we loading the elbow and shoulder with the use of these? Whenever you bind a joint, the load is going to be transferred up the kinetic chain. Looking at the lower extremity, it’s very common to tape ankles or wear ankle braces in many sports. A lot of coaches see this as a preventative mechanism. But, how much load is being transferred to the knee and hip and what are the repercussions? Joints are built to go through a particular range-of-motion as that allows them to aid in force dissipation and energy absorption when combined with eccentric (lengthening) muscle activity.
The upper extremity is not as well explored in research as the lower extremity because it is structurally more complex than that of the lower extremity. So this is an interesting question yet to be answered.
I have no issues with wearing these if the kids are experiencing pain. Some simply do not have the wrist flexibility for some of the wrist extension/hyperextension positions that they are forced into. I can attest that I feel their pain as I’m currently learning to Olympic lift and catching a clean without good wrist flexibility can take its toll, no doubt.
But, I still have questions about their efficacy and drawbacks.
16 comments ↓
Girls need to be put on a good prehab routine that pretty much what the boys do for pommel horse such as rice bucket or some other wrist conditioning exercises.
Women are NOT much more fragile than men, and it shouldn’t be the case that they have such weak wrists for gymnastics. This is a problem that can easily be corrected BUT it will have to occur down at a lower level, heh.
I prefer to do more wrist strengthening work/physio instead of jumping straight to support braces. I find some of my girls just want “products”, regardless of whether they need them or not. Also, they begin to rely very heavily on them after a while. They might get them for beam say, then you find them using their braces on floor (where previously they had never complained of wrist pain). Once they’re used to wearing them they think they can’t go without them! I don’t mind them, and in fact find them useful for those FEW girls who actually need them (mainly older gymnasts who have big growth spurts and/or put a significant amount of weight on, and then find it difficult to support themselves), but I try to steer my girls away from them when possible. I also just think they’re plain ugly on floor – they ruin the lines of the arms and hands during dance!
Funny this comes up – never had a girl wearing these over the last eight years I’ve been coaching teams – never even had an optional gymnast need them – until recently. Apparently, weak wrists run in her family. She got a pair and is using them, although I’d rather give her extra wrist strength/stretching exercises and see if maybe in a month or two she doesn’t need them.
Won’t let her use them for competing floor, however, as it makes the arm and hand positions awful! I think they should only be used when feeling pain or strain, or when doing a lot of tumbling/handstand work, not ALL the time.
When I took over my current coaching position, one of my athlete’s wrists hurt so much that she wore them all the time. I strengthened her to the point that she never wore them. She preferred to wear them for yurchenkos only because she felt she could get a more powerful block when wearing them, so I allowed it. I think wrist issues have alot to do with the gymnasts’ upper body strength, or at least that’s the issue I’ve run into.
I wear tiger paws for Yurchenkos, and sometimes for tumbling.
Overall, I agree with what most of the coaches seem to be saying; it’s best to focus on prehab/rehab of the wrists first, and use braces as a backup if necessary.
The question that I have is how much are we loading the elbow and shoulder with the use of these? Whenever you bind a joint, the load is going to be transferred up the kinetic chain. Looking at the lower extremity, it’s very common to tape ankles or wear ankle braces in many sports. A lot of coaches see this as a preventative mechanism. But, how much load is being transferred to the knee and hip and what are the repercussions? Joints are built to go through a particular range-of-motion as that allows them to aid in force dissipation and energy absorption when combined with eccentric (lengthening) muscle activity.
The upper extremity is not as well explored in research as the lower extremity because it is structurally more complex than that of the lower extremity. So this is an interesting question yet to be answered.
I have no issues with wearing these if the kids are experiencing pain. Some simply do not have the wrist flexibility for some of the wrist extension/hyperextension positions that they are forced into. I can attest that I feel their pain as I’m currently learning to Olympic lift and catching a clean without good wrist flexibility can take its toll, no doubt.
But, I still have questions about their efficacy and drawbacks.
I think they’re good for heavier, older girls who train a lot. And not to wear all the time. On a particularly heavy tumbling day, or when they’re learning something new and are doing lots of reps. I don’t think they should be worn when competing. The exception, I think, is vault. Vault doesn’t need pretty hands, and it strains wrists. I think maybe someone should practice like half of floor with and half without. I have a problem with the rec kids and level 4s wearing Tiger Paws. They don’t need them, two hours a week doesn’t hurt your wrists.
I think they’re fine in moderation.
Does anyone know if you could use these in the pool. Diving also puts a fair amount of stress on the wrists! Are they water proof?
Certainly the Tiger Paws we use are not waterproof.
Thanks for the excellent comment (above) Chris.
I added it to the original post.
Tracy I used to wear something similar to a tiger paw when I was training diving, but it was made of a plastic-ky kind of material, not leather. It was velcro and very similar in design. It helped enormously on platform, but most divers just used heavy strapping. Diving off ten metres hurt my wrists more than gym ever did.
Chris, I agree with your comments regarding tiger paws on vault, it’s really not a style issue with the hands when it comes to chucking a yurchenko double or whatever.
they do have waterproof tiger paws made for diving. Here is a site with some:
http://www.springboardsandmore.com/proddetail.asp?prod=TIGERWP
My daughter does all star cheer. her wrists have been hurting for the last month, mostly with tumbling.She is working on strengthening her wrists, but needs support now. heard tiger paws are good for tumbling but not for stunting. would the ezy probrace be more flexible for this?
Best, Laura, would be to have her try both. It’s very individual.
Im not a gymnast but im a break dancer and for years i have been doing Flares, Circles, and Airflares like that one Hamm brother does…my wrist are in terrible shape as now its hard to support my weight..I havent seen any reviews of guys using tiger paws…i have them coming in the mail ..but i was wondering do you know of any guys who do floor rutine using tiger paws
I cannot recall JB the name of a single male gymnast who uses them. But I have seen guys put on Tiger Paws in the past.
Certainly many, many male gymnasts “strap” wrists in different ways for Pommel Horse. That would be the apparatus for you to check vis-a-vis break dance.
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