I have tiny wrists and I'm ashamed of it, can I fix this somehow and how?

[TheEternalPessimist]

I'm male and older (I'm not going to give out my age). For as long as I can remember, I've always been very thin and have had tiny wrists as if I was perpetually stuck in the body of an 8 year old girl or something. I think it might be genetic, my mother is thin and apparently my dad was as thin as me when he was my age. I don't know what their wrists looked like. I weight about 53 kgs (116 lbs) and I'm 174 cm tall (5'8-5'9), I've had roughly the same weight and height since I was 15.

I "tolerate" my tiny wrists for the most part but recently I started working in a new company where we are in regular contact with coworkers and clients in public all day, so to speak. We wear a company t-shirt and now that we're heading towards summer and hotter temperatures a lot of my colleagues wear the company's t-shirt with nothing else but I always wear some kind of "jacket" over the t-shirt to mask my arms and wrists because I'm ashamed of how incredibly thin they are. Obviously this makes the whole thing weird and it's about to get even weirder as we head towards scorching summer temperatures.

I work out every day by lifting weights about 2-3 times per day until I'm exhausted and while this has given me more muscles in my upper arms I still have the same tiny wrists that I've had for most of my preteen, teenage and early adult life.

Is there any way to improve/fix this in the upcoming months? Obviously I know it can't be done overnight but it would nice to have some kind of start and go from there with a clear daily plan and eventually see some kind of improvement already in 2-3 months. And before you ask, my weight annoys me also but much less and I've tried gaining weight as well for years now but to no avail, nothing seems to work.

[Foxhall]

Ah thats disappointing you have not got even one reply in the week since you posted,

(this forum has gone down a lot from a few years ago when there were more interesting threads and a number of good contributors posting.)

I dont think I can be much help on this other than a certain empathy ,

I play a lot of racket sports- and I indeed had a bit of a psychological hang up for a while- I found wearing a wrist support made me feel more comfortable and less self conscious playing slightly heavier built guys.

I think there is a certain amount of this "all in the mind " too- at the end of the day people tend to notice with guys have they good upper arms and shoulders as opposed to having any interest in his wrists or lower arms,

what you are doing yourself with plenty of weights and physical exercise sounds a good plan and sometimes we just have to accept our looks or our build and make the most of things.

It might be worth getting checked for any food allergies or intolerances - sometimes there can be issues here which prevent absorbtion of nutrients and putting on a bit more weight.

 

[Andy_K]

No.

Your wrists are not going to grow. You cannot gain any meaningful amount of muscle there at all. This is why it's used as a measurement to determine your 'frame' size. Your arms (and much of the rest of your body) can grow though, and quite a significant amount. For that you'll need to do some progressive overload, rest properly, and eat a calorie surplus.

Lifting weights 2-3 times per day is almost certainly too much. Your muscles grow when they're recovering. You are breaking them down so they grow back bigger. Work out every other day. Or if you insist on working out every day, work different muscle groups so that each gets a day or two off before you hit it again. Track your calories daily (no guessing), and increase them if your weight doesn't go up week on week.

[Els]

I don't see an issue with slender wrists in a man, lots of pianists have very slender wrists and that doesn't negatively affect their popularity with women.

At 53kg for 5'8" though, that places you squarely in the severely underweight category. I'd probably have a talk with a doctor and get some tests done to see if everything is working as it should be, and also with a dietitian to come up with a balanced meal plan.