@taprider
It's an area of discussion with a lot of variables at play, mostly because riding position is highly dynamic and we are constantly moving around on the bike. That said, there are positions we tend to spend a lot of time in, such as when climbing for example. The wrist goes through 4 basics movements, and you can see this when standing up with your palms facing behind you and moving only at the wrist.
1\. Extension - lift the back of your hand upwards, towards ceiling
2\. Flexion - lifts palms upwards, towards the ceiling
3\. Adduction - thumbs turn inwards, towards each other
4\. Abduction - pinky fingers turn outwards, away from each other
5\. Note that there is a very limited amount of rotation at the wrist joint itself and that rotation of wrist/hand mainly happens at the elbow via the radius and ulnar bones.
Of course there can also be combinations of flexion/extension and adduction/abduction. Generally a neutral wrist is when there no flexion, extension, adduction or abduction. Also our hand spacing is mainly a function of shoulder width and movement at the shoulder. These things can vary though depending on how someone is built or what their typical day to day movements are like; for example having a repetitive job that "trains" your muscles to hold your body in a certain manner. Think about how people with desk jobs or who spend a lot of time on a computer/phone tend to have poor back/neck posture from their heads being poked forward all the time. So ideally, we want to put ourselves in a neutral wrist position most of the time as this is not only easiest on the joint, but it also allows for the greatest range of movement.
Now taking all that into consideration, optimum bar/grip width for most people is going to be about shoulder width, with a small amount of backsweep to account for the neutral position of the hand/wrist tending to not be perfectly straight if you drew a line between your two palms. As I mentioned before, Too much backsweep and you start to add abduction (I called it external rotation earlier for simplicity) to the wrist which is going to put strain on the wrist joint. What we really need is for the ends of the bar to slope down slightly to match the neutral position of the wrist/hand which has a slight amount of external rotation. You've discovered this in changing the position of you bar in your stem and rolling it so the ends of the bar slope down.
To address your question, your ulnar tunnel syndrome could have been affected/introduced by your bar position which may have put your wrists into excessive abduction for your wrist structure. For other people it might not be as much of an in issue. I've had some wrist issues myself, slight pain in the joint, and I went the unthinking route of simply trying more backsweep. While it helped slightly in some respects, it made things worse in other. When I actually thought about it and put my Kinesiology education into action I realized what was going on. In the gym, I coach people about making adjustments at the wrist with how they grasp the bar to alleviate wrist pain in the same manner on a fairly regular basis.
Hope that helps!
July 12, 2024, 8:14 a.m. - Mark
@taprider It's an area of discussion with a lot of variables at play, mostly because riding position is highly dynamic and we are constantly moving around on the bike. That said, there are positions we tend to spend a lot of time in, such as when climbing for example. The wrist goes through 4 basics movements, and you can see this when standing up with your palms facing behind you and moving only at the wrist. 1\. Extension - lift the back of your hand upwards, towards ceiling 2\. Flexion - lifts palms upwards, towards the ceiling 3\. Adduction - thumbs turn inwards, towards each other 4\. Abduction - pinky fingers turn outwards, away from each other 5\. Note that there is a very limited amount of rotation at the wrist joint itself and that rotation of wrist/hand mainly happens at the elbow via the radius and ulnar bones. Of course there can also be combinations of flexion/extension and adduction/abduction. Generally a neutral wrist is when there no flexion, extension, adduction or abduction. Also our hand spacing is mainly a function of shoulder width and movement at the shoulder. These things can vary though depending on how someone is built or what their typical day to day movements are like; for example having a repetitive job that "trains" your muscles to hold your body in a certain manner. Think about how people with desk jobs or who spend a lot of time on a computer/phone tend to have poor back/neck posture from their heads being poked forward all the time. So ideally, we want to put ourselves in a neutral wrist position most of the time as this is not only easiest on the joint, but it also allows for the greatest range of movement. Now taking all that into consideration, optimum bar/grip width for most people is going to be about shoulder width, with a small amount of backsweep to account for the neutral position of the hand/wrist tending to not be perfectly straight if you drew a line between your two palms. As I mentioned before, Too much backsweep and you start to add abduction (I called it external rotation earlier for simplicity) to the wrist which is going to put strain on the wrist joint. What we really need is for the ends of the bar to slope down slightly to match the neutral position of the wrist/hand which has a slight amount of external rotation. You've discovered this in changing the position of you bar in your stem and rolling it so the ends of the bar slope down. To address your question, your ulnar tunnel syndrome could have been affected/introduced by your bar position which may have put your wrists into excessive abduction for your wrist structure. For other people it might not be as much of an in issue. I've had some wrist issues myself, slight pain in the joint, and I went the unthinking route of simply trying more backsweep. While it helped slightly in some respects, it made things worse in other. When I actually thought about it and put my Kinesiology education into action I realized what was going on. In the gym, I coach people about making adjustments at the wrist with how they grasp the bar to alleviate wrist pain in the same manner on a fairly regular basis. Hope that helps!