Keep your grip healthy so it can get stronger and stay that way for years to come
We are "training" our grip strength on a daily basis. The good news is that the musculature and tendons in our forearms and hands are built for this kind of abuse. If you're into training - then you're guilty of overdoing it from time to time. Furthermore, if you live in anything but a 3rd world country then you make your living operating a computer and/or mobile device to varying degrees. Grabbing, crunching, pinching, squeezing, holding, plunging, gouging, typing, tapping, texting and so forth are part of your life and will continue to be for some time to come. Our paws were built to last, but the volume and continuous stress may be more than we can get our hands around.
Give yourself an opportunity to sustain this abuse - hit the stretches and a couple of easy exercises in your spare time. The stretches will relax and lengthen the overused tissue - typically associated with all the grabbing, crunching, etc. movements that are common place. The corrective exercises will strengthen the small hand movements that don't necessarily get trained. Together, you can extend the life of your hands, wrists, and elbows.
For the stretches... Perform 1-2sets and hold for 15-30sec each paw. Or perform the active-isolated version by holding a gentle stretch for 2sec and then releasing for a sec, repeating for 10-20reps each.
For the exercises... 2-3 sets on each side. Spreading the fingers begs for about 30 reps for some smoke, 50reps for the fire - work up to that. The manual resistance finger extensions will need 15-20reps at a slow pace. Make sure either exercise takes 30-60sec to complete on each side.
Good stuff Chris! These stretches can and should be done daily ... especially if you are a desk warrior. Hopefully these just become second nature. I wonder if there is any correlation to finger, wrist, arm, elbow flexibility and arthritis ... I'm guessing there likely is in some fashion.
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