This is where most doctors fail to make the connection. You have carpal tunnel syndrome because you have muscle imbalance in your forearms.

Let me explain. The forearm muscles move the wrist and fingers. All of the muscles that are used in typing, using a mouse, and most of the muscles used in playing the guitar are forearm muscles. When you use weights with a closed hand, you are using the forearm muscles to grip EVEN if you are working different muscle groups.

The flexor muscles are the ones on the front side of the forearm (palm side). They are what close the fingers and wrist. The extensor muscles pull the fingers and wrist backward. When you work (and play) the flexors are doing much more work than the extensors. The extensor muscles do not have to push anything.

The flexor muscles get thicker and shorter. The tendons of the flexor muscles get thicker and shorter. The 9 flexor tendons run through the carpal tunnel. The tigher muscles pull the wrist forward, reducing the size of the carpal tunnel. The thicker tendons also reduce the size.

This further leads to more irritation and inflammation. The reason night splints help is that they keep the hand in a neutral position, thus keeping the carpal tunnel open. BUT they do not correct muscle imbalance. They don’t make you get better.

Here’s an experiment for you. Hold your hands in a neutral position. That means that the back of your hand is in a straight line with the back of the forearm. Now keeping your hands in the neutral position, drop them to your sides. Now stop thinking about your hands for a couple minutes. If your muscles are balanced they would keep your hand in a neutral position without any effort on your part.

So the answer, is to loosen and lengthen the flexor muscles. Most programs and physical therapists use stretches. These can work eventually, but it takes a lot of persistence.

When I was having hand problems, stretching didn’t work for me. Icing is a good thing for lots of reasons I won’t get into here. (Ice is good, anti-inflammatory drugs are bad – I discuss this elsewhere). But ice after work, as you don’t want to work with cold hands).

That is when I started developing my self-massage techniques. These “effective” techniques do not require using your hands. I would not bother going to a massage therapist for this – as most won’t help you very much. You can do better work on yourself. Working on your forearms 5 minutes at a time, a couple time a day will do you more good, and save you a lot of money.

You can directly loosen the tight muscles and tendons, increase the blood supply to them, directly unstick muscle fibers that are stuck together, as well as work on muscle cells that are stuck in contraction.

I do show lots of stretches in my bonus content videos. I just believe my self-massage techniques get at the problem so much faster.

Hope this helps