Strength Training with Carpal Tunnel

[OfficeGirl]

Hello again!
This time I'm here for work out buddy. She is an even greener lifter than I am, and she hasn't looked into the forums, so I wanted to post for her. She has been diagnosed with some pretty significant carpal tunnel in both writsts. She doesn't have a surgery date yet, but it's going to happen soonish. She'll be out for 4-6 weeks after for recovery as well. Until the surgery, the doctor has told her that lifting weights is out. We can use the machines for her legs and good mornings for the lower back, but I'm struggling to come up with upper body exercises to help her maintain until she's healthy again. We can do low planks on the elbow, but no high planks, pull downs, rows or other lifts where strain is put on her wrists.

I was hoping to add some cardio to our plan anyway, so she might have to transition to a lot of cardio and lower body work for now. I'm just hoping we can find a solution to keep her body blanced and not lose her gains from the last couple months of super hard work.

[Boss Man]

Presumably then the carpal release surgery must be the only option after NSAIDS and Cortisone didn't work. I'd expect any half credible Doctor to have explored those two options before committing to surgical interventions.

Any there are plenty of body weight exercises that can be done for the upper body, such as good mornings, tricep extensions, concentration curls. romanain deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, leg raises, bench press, bent over rows, shoulder presses, military presses, shrugs, side raises and many more.

Pretty much any free weight exercise you can think of can be done without weight.

[OfficeGirl]

Right, she's been in a brace and had the pain killers and shots. We'll do the exercises with no weight. She can flex and create her own tension with no issues, right?

[Boss Man]

She will have to test that out for herself, although as it's carpal tunnel, then even doing something like a curl exercises or kickbacks for the biceps and triceps with no weight should be fine, as you're not holding any form of weight that might strain the carpal tunnel, so there should be an issue, unless she attempts any variation of wrist curls and frankly they are rubbish anyway and not recommended for anyone