Unless you have some sort of preexisting issue in your wrist or hand, I think practice develops your muscle memory to accommodate the recoil. In other words, you get used to it.
Yes, and, sadly, no. There are limits to what is safe, actually. And that limit is the .357 in pocket snub revolvers. AND the amount of shooting over time that you do.
We all have a "preexisting condition" in our wrists and hands. You do "get used to it" with practice, BUT, there is such a thing as too much practice.
Look at the professional athletes, people who push the envelope with their bodies. Their natural abilities, combined with their practice allows them to do more and take more than the rest of us.
BUT, there comes a time, and a point when physical damage results. Shooting hard kicking loads out of the smallest, lightest guns will result in nerve damage, if you go beyond your limits.
Most people never reach that point. A few do, and they tell me the road to recovery is not fun. A friend of mine, a dedicated shooter with decades of experience went too far one summer. Seriously into load development, he fired actually
thousands of .357 rounds from the small frame guns (several were used) over the course of a single summer.
This left him with serious nerve damage in his hands and arms. He has recovered, to the point where he can shoot an entire box of 9mm before he has to stop, but it has taken years. He gets most of his shooting pleasure from .22 these days.
Everybody is different, so the point where things go from safely tolerable to causing damage is different. And the damage is the kind of thing that creeps up on you.
We are all "men of iron" inside our own heads, and sometimes in front of our friends, but really, we're just flesh & blood, and there are limits. The older you get, the more this lesson is clearly taught.
Practice all you need, but when you start "feeling it" you're in a place that you would be better off not being in. The more you get there, the easier it is to get there. And the harder it gets to leave.
