Great Wrist Exercise

[North of 49th]

Have all finger tips touching and wrap a thick rubber band (the ones you'll find wrapped around broccoli at the local grocery store) around your fingers. Basically just open and close your hand against the resistance. Vary your hand positions - 10 reps sideways, 10 facing down, 10 facing up (or whatever # of reps.)

When I was in school for massage therapy we had a prominant chiropractor in our area that would come in and teach physiology and nutrition, among other things. In the past he had worked with several weightlifters, powerlifters and even arm wrestlers. One of the complaints they all shared was lack of grip strength. Often they would have trouble lifting to their potential due to that fact. The chiro would have them do the wrist exercises, and eventually some of them would be using 3 or 4 bands around their fingers. Once balance in the forearms were achieved, every lifter blew past their personal bests.

The reason the story was relevant to us is because, naturally, as therapists there was the potential for us to be pressing very hard on our wrists for 5 hours out of the day, or more (it is in my case anyways) - all the while working the flexors in our forearms and never our extensors. It really is a matter of time before problems will arise. The wrist exercise can eliminate this problem, and actually, increase the overall strength of the forearms. (In fact, the two previous problems I was getting in my wrists were because of my neglect in keeping up with the exercises..never again, especially since I started doing Gymnastic Strength Training™.)

Even in my practice, occasionally I will get a client complaining of carpal tunnel, and/or "tight" wrists. Everytime their flexors are very tight, and usually quite well developed, while their extensors are actually quite under-developed, soft even. Zero muscle tone whatsoever. (In fact, a couple of years ago, a local telephone company handed out racquet balls to their employees to give them to squeeze, to "strengthen" their wrists and help eliminate the growing problem of carpal tunnel. After a couple of months, when the problem got much worse, they handed out the balls with finger holes around them instead, where one has to "open" the fingers so that the extensors can be worked. The vast majority of the problems went away. The rubber bands are just alot cheaper and easier.)

Anyways, just a suggestion. If there was another thread with this exercise in it, I guess I wasted time writing a novel

By the way, loved the book and DVD's. Straight and to the point.

[Blairbob]

thankyou very much! i'm going to send this one out to my friends.