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Do Your Fingers Bend Towards The Palm When Your Hand Is Relaxed?


Benedikt Farsmann

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Page 7 "Abbildung 2" (Picture #2) - I noticed that my fingers bend when I relax my hand and found this article. It's not supposed to look like this! If you experiance the same, do more stretching and extensor work!

http://www.alpinmedizin.org/rundbriefe/rundbrief40.pdf (German only, just "read" the pictures ;) )

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I don't get what it's saying by looking at the pictures. Isn't picture 2 on page 6..?

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Sometimes I notice mine contort in if I haven't done extensor work in a while, time to hit the rice bucket!

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Any one on the 'expand your hand bands'? In this case? Do they work? I noticed the same indeed, after stretching the hand stays more 'open' while in rest.

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Any one on the 'expand your hand bands'? In this case? Do they work? I noticed the same indeed, after stretching the hand stays more 'open' while in rest.

I used rubber bands only for the first few months when I started using my gripper. Then I only used the rice bucket for a while a couple of times per week and saw I responded better to that. I still use rubber bands when I am driving for distances.

If you have never used a rice bucket to work your hands out, here is how to make and use one:

I bought a 5 gallon bucket from walmart for like $3

I bought a 20 lb bag of rice for around $10. You could use less rice I suppose but with this much you can really get two hands in there and play around. There will be rice flour on your hands after, just wash it off, it would be impossible to try and rinse the rice of it.

The deeper you stick your hands into the rice the harder it will make the exercise.

I like to stick both hands into the rice with my fingers and thumbs of each hand touching themselves to make a point. Simply straighten out your hands to work your extensors like you were using a rubber band, and I like to twist my wrists while opening them. Repeat the movement or just play around trying to work the fingers, thumbs, and wrists. You will get an extreme pump if your hands if you put some effort into it in less than a minute. Do a few sets like this for good active recovery workout.

For my recovery workouts I have two buckets next to me. One is the rice bucket, the other is half full of water and a towel folded longways soaking. I saw this in a John Brooksfield DVD, he would ring the towel out twisting with his wrists to get it bone dry. Man you talk about a good pump in the wrists and forearms when you get close to the end of the towel....I superset the rice and the towel ring

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I don't get what it's saying by looking at the pictures. Isn't picture 2 on page 6..?

I'm sorry. It's indeed "Abb. 2" on page 9 on the lower right (the scanned image says page "7") that shows how the fingers bend out of the ordinary. The other pictures only show how fingers of climbers adapt to stress by thickening of the bones and/or some common injuries and bone malposition respectively, caused by accidents or muscle imbalances (look at the back of that climber on page 9).

Any one on the 'expand your hand bands'? In this case? Do they work? I noticed the same indeed, after stretching the hand stays more 'open' while in rest.

From "Weinbeck; Optimales Training "

There is no single sports activity which develops all muscle groups with identical intensity. Thus, muscular dysbalances are bound to develop. But also just onesided strain can cause those dysbalances.

Muscular dysbalance means a muscular imbalance, caused on the one side by unproportional development of strength and shortening of the working muscle, on the other hand by not exercising weak muscles. This can happen through an active process in your workout programme, but also because some muscle groups have a natural tendency to be weak (abs, glutaeus) and some have the tendency to being shortened (calves, back extensor muscles). These muscle shortenings are not confined to athletes only.

As mentioned before, muscular dysbalances are mainly caused by onesided motion sequences or onesided power workout. This can lead to disordered joint function or to disordered stereotypes in the motion sequence itself or to a dysbalanced posture.

There is a tight reflective interaction between the musculature and adjoining joint structures. Disorders in the muscle cause disorders in the joints and vise versa.

Target value adjustments of the tonicity (=tension) in the sense of weakenings and shortenings of the muscle lead to alterations of the stereotypes of the movement - the muscles do not work together in their usual way, nor do they contract with their automatic sequel pattern - and affect negatively the adaptability and resiliance of directly or indirectly involved structures. Increase in tonicity and muscle shortenings are held responsible for insertionstendopathies and medical conditions in the area of the spine which often go together with alterations of movement stereotypes and posture alterations which later cause injuries. Since muscles function in so-called muscle chains, a shortened muscle affects the whole muscle chain and thus affects the movement pattern as well as the body posture.

Consequences:

To avoid or lessen muscular dysbalances it is best to take specific measures in addition to exercise. These measures consist of stretching the shortened muscles on one side, and strengthening the weakened muscles as well as all trunk muscles for a good body posture on the other side.

To balance the upper body, different abdominal and back muscles play an important role. Abs and hip extensors erect the pelvis, the lumbal back muscles and hip flexors tilt the pelvis to the front. Only a balanced proportion of strength of the muscles which affix to the pelvis can maintain a healthy posture of the pelvic and the spine. This is often hardly the case. With many people the hip flexors are very strong and the lower back extensors are weak. The effect is a tilt of the pelvis to the front and the person thus develops a stronger lower back lordose which causes proplems with the intervertebral disks. Due to weak abdominal musculatur it is not possible to erect the pelvis and to lessen the back lordose. This is reenforced by an additional weakness of gluteal muscles.

Before you strengthen your abdominal muscles you should always first stretch and relax the shortened back muscles and hipflexors.

(...)

I used a bucket of rice in the beginning but I noticed that it is hard to increase resistance so I switched to rubber bands (expand-your-hand bands) but didn't use them too often. In my opinion rubber bands are a better choice, but with a bucket of rice/sand you can train the full-range of motion. Maybe you could combine both!? Warm-up with a bucket of rice and do some heavier sets with rubber bands? Makes sense to me.

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I use an old plastic protein powder can with plates in it for static extensor training (I remember others using glasses, metal cans etc.).

For static and shortrange dynamic extensor work I built a kind of eagle loops replica, need to use it more, works quite well.

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  • 6 months later...

Wow, just saw this topic and my hands (especially the right) are in an even more extreme claw position than the "bad" example they showed there. I have noticed this past year has seen them get even more tightened when they're hanging relaxed. Like a claw. Kind of goes along with the nickname of "The Kraken" to some extent, lol.

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Mine are worse than the picture as well. I've only recently been doing extensor work to help out with my tendonitis.

Tom

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I can't tell if my hands got any "better", but lately they have been feeling a lot healthier since I started doing more extensor work. ... God, were's my English teacher :sleeping:

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