Your fingers provide fine motor movement that enables you to pick up and hold things. The fingers must be exercised every day to help promote strength, flexibility and joint health. People diagnosed with arthritis or those experiencing gradual weakness caused by lack of use or aging may find dexterity, strength and ability to perform basic tasks difficult or impossible. Exercising the fingers and hands encourages dexterity and agility, strength and coordination. A few minutes a day is all it takes, but it offers long-lasting benefits.
Isolation and Strength
Place your right hand palm-side down on a flat surface, suggests Ohio State Medical Center University. Raise only your thumb, keeping your remaining fingers firmly on the table. Now place your thumb down on the table and repeat the move with your index finger. Hold the finger as high as you can without pain or discomfort, and then lower it. Repeat the same lifting process with the middle finger, the ring finger and the pinkie or little finger. This exercise helps strengthen individual muscles found in the finger, as well as the ligaments and tendons that join them to the hand. It also increases agility, especially in those diagnosed with arthritis. Perform the same set of exercises on the left hand. You can repeat this exercise set several times a day to help build strength, relieve tension and improve coordination.
Squeezing and Holding
Crumple a piece of paper and wad it into a ball in the palm of your hand. You can reuse the paper several times by smoothing it out after you're finished. Use all of your fingers to crumple the paper. This exercises each of your fingers, improves coordination, and stretches and extends your finger muscles. You may repeat this exercise two to three times for each hand. Now repeat the exercise as quickly as you can, trying to make your fingers curl in faster and faster. This increases speed, agility, strength and coordination at the same time. Don't be surprised if you find this exercise easier for your dominant hand than the other.
Making Rings
Place your right hand palm-side up or allow it to hang comfortably. Touch the tip of your thumb to your index finger, then the middle finger, the ring finger, the pinkie and then back again. Try to increase your speed and coordination. Start slowly so your fingertips touch each other and aren't merely slipping off the surface. You can perform this exercise repeatedly throughout the day to improve manual dexterity and agility, as well as coordination.
Thumb and Finger Presses
Hold your hand palm-side facing inward, fingers tucked gently together. Bring your thumb across the surface of the palm, as if you're trying to touch your thumb to your pinkie finger. Then extend the thumb away from the hand, opposite the index finger, feeling the stretch in the thumb and the base of the thumb where it meets the top of the wrist joint. Repeat the exercise 10 times and then repeat the process with your other hand. Do this exercise with each of the fingers of both hands.
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