Finger and Wrist Jams
Finger and wrist jams are hard to avoid and can be a painful slowdown to your game. Let’s look at the management of this injury from the perspective of fascia.
Let’s say you jam your thumb going for a flag. Of course, first make sure there isn’t a tear or break (you may need to seek help from a healthcare provider to rule this in or out for you). Once you’re in the clear from a major tear or break, follow these steps.
Understand the force mechanism – In this case, let’s assume the thumb was jammed towards the body. That means the force traveled up the forearm. Contact injuries usually create forces that travel beyond the area of injury throughout the body.
Assess the fascia – Remember, fascia is connective tissue that runs throughout the entire body. For the case of this injury, we are going to talk about the fascia that surrounds muscles. Ideally, we want fascia to have a slide-and-glide relationship with the muscle it surrounds. In injuries, fascia tends to get congested in the trail of tissue from injury impact. If you don’t manage the congestion it can get a fibrous like tissue and bind the muscle and fascia together. If they become bound together, this can impact how quickly an injury heals and change force transmission in the future.
In this image the star indicates the area of injury, the line indicates the direction of impact and the circles indicate where there is congestion in the injury trail. Congestion feels like stiffness, tenderness, swelling, or a denser tissue quality.
Management of injury – Gently press into the trail of injury and in the areas of felt fascial congestion (the circles in the image). Spend time gently doing self-massage in these areas. This may be tender but don’t push beyond a pain tolerance of 5/10 on your pain scale. Working the fascia this way increases blood flow to the area of injury, clears out the tissue changes from the impact and prevents the body from having residual tissue changes (fascial adhesions or scar tissue). Work each "circle" for 1-3 minutes.
This article is for general information only. The advice and recommendations we discuss do not replace a healthcare provider's advice, treatment, or care. The use and implementation of the information discussed are at the sole discretion of the reader.