Advice for sprained wrist recovery

Looking for Advice

Hi fellow classical guitarists!

I sprained my left wrist (fretting hand) a while back (1month or so) and it has thankfully been healing quite "normally", and I can now play again with less worry of accidentally overstraining.

I've kept it relatively light in terms of left hand exercises on the guitar, and focused more on right hand techniques during this recovery period.

Luckily, seeing how the fretting hand's wrist is usually flat anyways, I did not discover this current issue that I have, until recently.

Which is my previous flexibility in my abductor digiti minimi (hilarious name btw), the muscle in the palm connected to the pinky, is now :

  1. Stiff consistently / jerky

  2. If I try to do the usual pinky independence exercises, soreness/tiredness in my wrist/forearm occurs waaay faster than pre-sprained me.

Furthermore, my fingers don't seem to respond as quickly as they should. I noticed this as my movement memory paired with my right hand is still there when I revisit old pieces.

But there's a noticeable difference in terms of coordination. (probably because my right hand expected the left hand to be there already)

I don't think it has to be a lack of practice issue (due mainly to point 2) and I have continued to teach/mentally practice throughout the recovery period despite not playing much.

My sprained was deemed to be probably grade 2 (moderate sprain). I was wondering :

  1. If anyone has had similar experience and could share if they still have these issues?

  2. Estimated recovery duration you experienced to be fully recovered from the sprain

  3. What exercises I could be doing to aid the recovery process/make sure it heals 'right'?

  4. Other advice?

Thank you very much for reading this lengthy post!

Posted Mar 14, 2026, 6:16 AM UTC

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