Originally Posted by
icemilkcoffee
Are you putting your weight on the center groove of your palm?
that aggravates the carpal tunnel nerves.
Your weight should be on the butt of your palm. Rotate your elbows inwards so the butt of the palms are resting on the handlebars/hoods. Are you using modern brifters or old style brake levers?
You are implicating the wrong nerve. The median nerve travels thru the carpal tunnel and provides cutaneous sensation to digits 1, 2, 3 and the lateral 1/2 of 4. The ulnar nerve (the other nerve in the image that is unlabeled) provides cutaneous sensation to the medial 1/2 of digit 4 (ring finger), and digit 5 (pinky). It's common in cycling to experience numbness from compression of either or these nerves, but the consequences, in terms of which combination of fingers go numb are different.
To the OP....in order to avoid compression on either of these nerves you have to be mindful of how you are resting your hands on the handlebars. It doesn't matter how many hand positions you have if you are compressing areas in your wrist and proximal hand in which these nerves run thru. The median nerve runs thru the center of your wrist, and the ulnar nerve runs thru the wrist more medially (toward the pinky side). Once you understand the basic anatomy, and to which fingers each nerve provides cutaneous sensation, it's easy to diagnose which nerve is being compressed and this should inform you on how to tweak your hand positions to find ways that do not compress these nerves.