Hey y’all. I’m still a beginner, but I’ve been really into learning tricks for the last couple of months and I’m starting to feel some anger in my wrist and shoulder, especially when I’ve been practicing the same trick for an hour. Any suggestions/experience with this? Any of you have recommended warm-ups/stretches/technique to pay attention to?
I know some of the young kids here may be laughing at me, but I’m, you know, in my 40s, with a history of RSI from too much computer work, and also I’ve been rock climbing for 15 years, all of which leads to pretty thrashed wrists and shoulders and multiple rounds of rehab. So I’ve learned to be pretty cautious about this stuff.
Thanks!
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fradiger
(the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)
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I try to do these daily for hand/wrist, I sit at a desk and type all day for work and they’ve helped for sure.
I started yoyoing only about 6 months ago and I felt alot of joint pain during the begining. What actually helped me was when I realized that I didn’t need to throw very hard. I use to put alot of force into every throw.
Definitely second that you don’t have to throw as hard as you think. Brandon vu did a demonstration video on youtube about throwing breakaways that really demonstrates that.
I don’t really have any stretching advice, but I definitely have experienced wrist and shoulder soreness in the past when I was starting out. I used to throw as hard as possible, and would get fatigued after an hour or so like you described.
The best tip I can give is to just stay mindful of tension in your body, and really examine your technique to see if you’re over exaggerating movements unnecessarily. I know that’s broad, but when you see people that are very good at yoyoing, you can tell that even if they’re moving fast, their body is relaxed and still moves fluidly and they’re usually efficient with their hand/body movements.
A lot of that will come naturally with time, but being mindful of it early on will probably help with your fatigue and soreness. I’d say take some videos of you yoyoing and watch them back to examine exactly how you play. You might be able to pick out things to adjust that you hadn’t thought of.
I had and still have this issue occasionally. I just had to find a balance. You don’t always have to throw as hard as you can. Practicing the same trick for long periods will definitely do it. I noticed it especially when I was learning hooks. Eventually I got a lot better at throwing the right speed for the trick I’m trying to do and knowing when to switch it up whether that be doing different tricks or even switching styles. I like to switch between unresponsive, responsive, and fixie. There’s lots of other cool styles too or even kendama, diabolo, begleri, etc. but yeah…
As a mid 30s guy who has wrist pain… learning better technique for throwing sleepers, throwing less hard because, and a little stretching goes a long way.
FWIW I asked Steve from CLYW about it at one point and he also said throwing less hard helped him. He said something like, “I’m not competing, and most of the time a little extra juice doesn’t make or break the trick I’m doing… but it does hurt more.”
