The flexor carpi radialis can trigger pain at the wrist if it is overly tight or contains trigger points.
It is a muscle of your forearm that helps to move your hand.
On this page you will learn about its attachment points, functions, pain zones, overload movements, impaired movements, palpation and self-massage.
Excessive muscle tension or trigger points in this muscle can trigger pain at the volar side of your wrist.
If this muscle is too tight or harbors trigger points, it may be that you feel pain with any motion where you flex your fingers and your wrist.
It goes without saying that all the activities listed under the point “Overuse & Trigger Point Development” are probably painful and impaired.
This muscle runs from the medial epicondyle to the metacarpal bone of the index finger.
The X in the muscle picture displays an area that is common for trigger points to show up.
This muscles’ function is to flex your hand and to abduct it at your wrist.
Flexion at the wrist
Abduction at the wrist
Especially excessive use of gripping, twisting and pulling motions will lead to tensions and trigger points in this muscle.
That means many activities of daily living can create problems. Here are a few examples – all of which include repetitive or excessive gripping, twisting or pulling motions –.
Beside that, it is important to note that other muscles, located more centrally in your body, can induce satellite trigger points in your flexor carpi radialis if they contain trigger points themselves.
That means, all activities that overload those muscles can eventually induce pain at your volar wrist. Before you now freak out and get totally overwhelmed, please don’t. Simply spoken it means the following.
If you find trigger points in this muscle and work them but they come back over, and over again, and your pain just won’t subside, check the muscles listed below.
They might contain key trigger points which you have to deactivate for lasting relief.
In order to feel this muscle, bend your wrist and make a fist. Now you should be able to see and feel a couple of tendons appearing at your wrist.
Feel the outer one – that is closest to your thumb – and follow its entire length down your forearm.
After a couple of centimeters, the tendon will transfer into the muscle belly.
That muscle is your flexor carpi radialis. You should be able to palpate it all the way down to your medial epicondyle.
For massage I recommend using a massage ball. A tennis ball can be already too soft for massage.
Still, you might feel different, especially if your forearm muscles are extremely tender.
I absolutely love massaging this area with a ball, for two simple reasons.
First, I found the pressure that I can create with my ball – a cork ball– more than enough to relieve tight tissue.
The second reason is, that the ball covers quite some area while exerting pressure and thus also treats surrounding muscles.
As it is very rare that only one of the forearm flexor muscles develops problems in isolation, this is even desirable.
On top of that, this lets me concentrate better on finding tender spots instead of staying exactly on the flexor carpi radialis.
