Why Do My Wrists Hurt When Riding a Dirt Bike?

Hand pain from riding a dirt bike or ATV can be very painful and many riders turned to me with horrible pains from painful hand diseases such as carpal tunnel or warts even though I also experienced a number of hand diseases and pains from riding and I know how much those pain can be, that it can paralyze you and even prevent you from riding.

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Why Do My Wrists Hurt When Riding an ATV or dirt bike?

You may experience pain in your wrist when riding for a lot of different reason such as overloading, vibrating from the handlebars, holding the handlebars in the wrong way or even when your hands are weak. But there are a few ways to avoid the pain which I will explain in this guide.

I will explain why your hands hurt when riding and how you can reduce the pain. In my own case, I experienced pain in both hands, so everything I present in this guide is for both dirt bike and ATV riders. So, let’s get started.

Why do your hands hurt when riding a dirt bike or ATV?

If you are not satisfied with the short answer, I also have the complex answer for you. So, you have to understand that inside your hand, there are loads of tendons, bones, muscle tissue and many different parts that it is made up of. And you also need to know that there are no muscles in your hand compared to other parts of your body where you have muscles. This is why your hands suffer a lot more serious injury which can be very painful, and because of this, it is your job to take care of them.

In addition, there are some very common mistakes that most people make when riding the dirt bike or ATV which causes them to experience pain; below are some of the mistakes:

ATV racer takes a turn during a race on a dusty terrain

Common causes of hand pain when riding

Weak Hands – One of the main reasons why your hands hurt while riding is because of the fact that your hands are very weak or you just didn’t let your hands get used to the handlebars. This is no wonder why new riders always suffer from hand pain, so either give your hands time to get used or just strengthen them.

Unstable and vibrating handlebars – Vibrating and unsteady handlebars are also one of the main causes of hand pain, and the truth is that it is too dangerous to ride when there is vibration from the handlebars which can cause very painful hand ailments. So, you have to strengthen the handlebars and stabilize them to make them stronger and more stable.

Painful Handlebar for Riding – If your handlebar is made of very painful material for grips such as metal or steel and has no particular cover to reduce the pain, it can be very dangerous for you especially if you are the type that squeezes his hand firmly on the handlebars, so it is important to make sure your handlebars do not hurt for riding.

Wrong grip – Wrong grip can break your hands; please take note of this; it is not a joke. I will show you some gripping techniques later on, i.e., the right way to hold the handlebars. Know that if you hold the handlebars the wrong way, you will experience terrible pain. So, it is important that you continue reading this guide.

How to prevent pain in hands when riding

Do not squeeze the handlebars too hard

A mistake most riders make is holding and even squeezing the handlebars which cause pain in their hands. Yes, I understand that dirt bikes and ATVs are both designed for racing which is fine, but squeezing the handlebars should only be done in some cases, not in normal riding.

In addition, it is important to note that no matter how many different techniques you try to reduce and prevent pain while riding, as long as you continue to sharpen the handlebars all the time, you will always be in pain.

If you do occasionally have to squeeze the throttle, because you are a competitor in races, I would recommend that you should use the 80/20 law, which means that you should allow your hand to rest 80 percent of the time, and for 20 percent of the time, you should grip the bayonet tightly especially when you attack and want to bypass your competitors.

Make the handlebars softer and more comfortable to grip

If the handlebars of your dirt bike or ATV are very painful to grip and made from metal or steel, you will definitely need to do something that will make the handlebars more comfortable, easy to grip and less painful. Explained below are the 2 main ways by which you can reduce pain:

Add another layer of protection to the handles – If the protecting layer of your handlebars have destroyed or you simply don’t have the best layer, you can add a sponge or rubber layer to cover the handlebars which will significantly reduce the pain while you can even prepare the protection layer yourself or buy it at any store.

Make the handlebar fit to the size of your hands – If you feel the handlebar is not suitable for the size of your hands, you can easily buy a new handlebar that will perfectly fit for your hands because if the handlebar is too big for your hands, you will need to grip the handlebars more tightly which will result in pain.

biker making a stunt and jumps in the air

Wear gloves

Gloves can definitely make a very significant difference and ease the pain you experience while riding. Wearing gloves will not only significantly reduce the risk of rashes and warts but will also protect the skin of your palm as you fall out of dirt bike or ATV. If you don’t know, what comes first to the mind of a person who is about to fall is to fall on the palms, so gloves protect your hands.

But it is important to know that riding with gloves is less comfortable than riding without gloves and your hand will take a long time to train with gloves. Gloves can sometimes cause your hands to slip away from the handlebars while holding which can be very annoying, but at least, you will not suffer from hand pain.

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Strengthen your hands

Strengthening your hands can be a great idea to ease the pain while riding, but if your hands are strong, you don’t need anything more because usually, strong hands can overcome everything.

A few exercises you can do are shown in the video below, but with that, I am pretty sure you are not going to invest in the hand strengthening exercises, so I recommend that you take a sponge or tennis ball and just squeeze it. In my opinion, it is the most effective way to strengthen your hands, and the best thing in those exercises is that you can do it anywhere, whether home, school and more.

In addition, if you want to do the strengthening exercises in the videos, do not start with the hard ones because starting with hard ones can hurt your hands as you must understand that your hands are very sensitive. Therefore, you must start with relatively easy exercises, not hard ones.

Give your hands time to get used to the bayonet

If you are a beginner, don’t be surprised that your hands hurt because you have to understand that it will take time for your hands to get used to the handlebars, whether it is dirt bike or ATV. So, sometimes, the best thing you can do is just to keep riding and give your hands time to get used to it. For some people, it takes a week, and for some, it takes a month.

Using myself as an example here, at first, when I started riding, I ride with tension and it was very painful for me to hold the tension in my hands until after a few days when my hands just get used to it. So, the same applies to all new riders whether riding a dirt bike or ATV, don’t be tensed, just keep on riding, you will see your hands will get used to it.

However, if you have been riding for a long time and you still feel some pain in your hands, I would recommend you go to a doctor to know what ailments you have in your hands and help you understand where the pain comes from.

Reduce vibration from the handlebars

Vibration from the handlebars significantly damages blood flow in the hands and can do very big damage to the hands to the extent that it can lead to serious injuries, not to mention how painful it is.

In addition, vibration from the handlebars leads to difficulty in riding and is very uncomfortable, especially if you are competing in races where it makes your ride difficult. So, this means you do have to take this problem seriously, and believe me, I also know how annoying it is.

And unfortunately, there is no way to unequivocally avoid the vibration of the handlebars, especially when riding in steep areas such as mountains, stones, or steep sidewalks where you will surely experience a certain vibration, but with this, you can reduce the vibration of the handlebars.

To reduce the vibration of the handlebars, you need to the following steps:

Add a rubber or sponge layer to the handlebars. This significantly reduces the vibration.

Strengthen your tires and wheels because vibration always happens due to unstable wheels and tires.

Add weighted bar edges.

Strengthen the handlebars because one of the screws may have fallen or loosen.

If all of these things don’t help, you should get a better and smoother engine or a better ATV or dirt bike.

Change your hand position

Sometimes, some riders simply forget to move their hands and change the grip they hold on the handlebars so that they can create a situation for a simple rider to continue to hold one point in the handlebars without moving their hands. This can create numbness and stop blood flow and of course cause terrible pain.

And because of that, the best thing you can do is to move your arms around the handlebars and not only hold one point. This will significantly reduce the pain and also increase your blood flow.