As small and delicate as your hands' anatomical structures may be, those muscles, tendons and ligaments are important for normal daily activities. Keeping them strong is a must. Fortunately, your hands respond to light exercise by becoming stronger and more resilient to injury. Just a couple of gentle isometric exercises daily will not only increase grip strength but may also improve blood pressure, raising hand-fitness to a whole new level of importance.
Introductory Isometric Exercises
Light isometric exercise involves muscular contraction that does not require the muscle to lengthen or change shape, nor the affected joint to change position. One example is pressing your hands together. This allows fixed strength to develop and helps improve joint stability. Developing hand stability requires only light exercise, and one method, fashioned after the use of hand grippers, is to gently squeeze a tennis ball. There is no need to squeeze terribly hard; if you squeeze lightly for 30 seconds, rest for the same interval and repeat four times, every day, your hand strength will improve. Keeping the pressure light will prevent excessive joint soreness or muscle strain.
Open-Handed Stability
Squeezing increases closed-hand strength. For open-hand strength, hold a book or a cup of water with only the fingers of your open palm, leaving your thumb uninvolved. Balance the weight this way, keeping your thumb disengaged, and you will feel your hand muscles working to maintain stability. If your hand begins to droop from fatigue, you should rest for 30 seconds, then repeat the weighted hold.
Importance to Daily Tasks
Hand strength informs personal safety. Manipulating objects with skill and holding them firmly helps ensure your well-being. Isometric strength is a must for carrying groceries, opening stubborn lids on jars, and performing fix-it jobs around the house or workplace that improve environmental safety. Since strength and dexterity work together, these light isometric exercises will keep your hands in top shape not only for carrying and holding things, but also for fine coordination skills required in cooking, buttoning clothes, teeth-flossing, and writing or typing.
Exploring Effects on Blood Pressure
Bottom Line Secrets reports that in 2004, a McMaster University research team conducted a scientific study involving isometric hand exercises performed by hypertensive individuals using hand grippers. The study supported a lucky discovery made in the 1960s that fighter pilots who squeezed their hand grips during gravity-busting flight maneuvers temporarily raised their blood pressure, allowing their bodies to not only cope with excessive gravitational strain but subsequently develop lower resting blood pressures. The 2004 study participants performed four sets of two-minute isometric contractions, three times a week, for eight weeks. Participants lowered both their systolic and diastolic pressure readings. The researchers concluded that a type of physical overcompensation had occurred in response to the squeezing exercises. Thus, a light course of isometric squeezing may be the very first step in pursuing advanced regimens to lower your resting blood pressure.
Start Small
You need not be a fighter pilot to benefit from isometric hand strengthening. Even these few, light exercises described above will improve your hands' fitness, and being able to "get a good grip" on things will always be a part of good health.
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