Following breaking my hand and 12 weeks off the bike I have been recommneded a powerball to build strength. The reviews I have read nearly all just talk about how adictive they are but not if/how effective they are at building wrist and hand strength.

Any thoughts??

Knowing how exhausting they are on your forearms, I’d be very surprised if they didn’t help (a lot).

There’s more fun ways of building wrist strength 🙂

When I broke my hand, the physio I went to used them, but recommended caution against rsi.

Just get the most basic no-frills one. Mine has a display on that I never look at & glowing leds that get on my nerves.

worth a go.
used mine pretty regularly for wrist re-hab. boring and noisy(ish) but pretty effective to rebuild grip strength.

they’re very good at setting off my rsi.

if you’re looking for wrist exercises (stop sniggering), you’d be much better of with the old ‘short bit of broom handle + 2m of string + weight of your choice’ trick.

(hold the ends of the bit of wood, and wind the weight up, wind the weight down, etc.)

Wonder where mine is… It turned out to not be grim enough to be interesting, but too involving to do in the background, so I stopped using it. Diverting for a little while though.

Out of curiosity are you actually finding any significant weakness? I started using it as preperation for enduro downhill racing but I can’t say as I’ve ever felt my wrists are too puny for everyday riding.

stumpy01 – Member

When I broke my hand, the physio I went to used them, but recommended caution against rsi.

Just get the most basic no-frills one. Mine has a display on that I never look at & glowing leds that get on my nerves.

The high-score display is the most important bit!

Wonder where mine is… It turned out to not be grim enough to be interesting, but too involving to do in the background, so I stopped using it. Diverting for a little while though.

Exactly this.

Quite fun to play with, but the novelty wore off, and I wasn’t using it for any specific recovery or physio, so gave up!

The high score led display is good craic for a bit of friendly competition.

Can’t remember what the world champ’s top score was but it was something like double what i could get. 😯

You ‘need’ the display for competitive reasons. A camera (maybe video) to record the gurning involved in a high speed effort is also a must.

Using them at a slower speed and for a longer period of time is good for recovery, faster stuff must be inviting RSI I would have thought.

Several people on here have used them successfully to combat tennis elbow type symptoms after a percussive massage session on the forearm – myself included.

If you rotate it at slower speeds then it starts to get very ‘heavy’ after a while and then it gets tough.

Don’t know how to quote but in response to Northwind.

The therapist tested my grip strength, right was 42 (not sure what the units were) and the left was 20. Average for mid 30’s bloke is 52.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQPESY-pndw[/video] 😯 😕 😮 😯 😳

yup used one to maintain strength when I was in a sling for a couple of months (busted shoulder).

good for that but not used it since – think I gave it to a mate who used it for recovery of his injury.

worth a try

Have used to strengthen and also due to shoulder injury for the money def worth a go just don’t lose grip when at full tilt as with the giro you will bust whatever it hits. They work well

Have used to strengthen and also due to shoulder injury for the money def worth a go just don’t lose grip when at full tilt as with the giro you will bust whatever it hits. They work well