Hand & Forearm Pain: Why Hard-Working Hands Seize Up (and What to Try at Home)

This one started as a question. A hairdresser, asked how I'd treat someone in her line of work, and instead of typing an essay, I filmed the answer. [Bodywork is so hard to put into words, so I decided to make a video instead while i was on the beach]

But the more I worked through it, the clearer it got that this isn't only a hairdressing video. If you spend your days typing, gripping tools, cutting, lifting, driving, cooking, wrangling kids — your hands are doing more repetitive work than any other part of your body. And almost nobody ever treats them.

Why hands cop it worse than anywhere

Here's the rule I kept coming back to in the video: anywhere that moves a lot gets overused. Your thumb alone has movement in every direction, powered by muscles and tendons that mostly don't live in your thumb at all — they run down through the wrist and forearm.

So when your thumb or the base of your hand aches after a long day, the problem usually isn't one sore spot. It's a whole chain of tendons under load for eight, ten, twelve hours — at work, then in the car, then at the stove, then on your phone. The tissue never gets a turn to let go.

That's why quick hand stretches often don't seem to do much. You're stretching the middle of the chain and ignoring where it anchors.

What I actually look for

In the video I work through a hand the way I would in the studio — slowly. I start at the wrist, because it's the gateway everything passes through, then work into the thumb junction, where an enormous number of tendons and nerves converge into a small space.

It may not look like much, it's slow, sustained pressure, pinning something that's been trapped and giving it time to let go.

Proper release work isn't force. Tendons that have been bracing for months don't respond to being mashed; they respond to being held, deliberately, right where they join the bone, until the tissue eases. If you've read my piece on what deep tissue should actually mean, it's the same principle, scaled down to the smallest joints you own.

And to be upfront the way I was in the video: the hands are where I'd start with someone who works on their feet all day using their arms — it's certainly not where it ends. Neck, shoulders, forearms, even hamstrings and quads all get a say. That's what an initial assessment is for.

The bit you can do yourself

From about the 13-minute mark I show the self-release: using your opposite elbow (or thumb) to press slowly into the fleshy junction between your thumb and pointer finger, holding where it's tender rather than rubbing. You'll know the spot when you find it. It's also a perfect one to swap with a workmate between clients or on a break.

Try it for a couple of weeks. If it helps but keeps coming back, that's your sign the pattern runs further up the chain than you can reach on your own — and that's the point where hands-on work earns its keep, whether that's with me here on the Gold Coast or an MMT-trained bodyworker near you.

Ready when you are

If your hands, thumbs or forearms are aching at the end of every workday, you don't have to wait until they're a real problem. Most clients start with a 90-minute Initial Assessment and Treatment — we find what's actually driving it, then start releasing it the same session.

Book an Initial Assessment or if this raised a question about your own aches, ask it on the video or our socials. Clearly, I take requests.