13 Effective Hand Exercises To Include In Your Workout For Stronger Hands
A simple handshake can tell you how strong, confident, dominant and trustworthy the person is. It is all about the grip. But our hands do much more than just shake hands! Our hands do most of our work, be it writing, lifting, pushing or holding anything. But what do we do for our dear hands? Almost nothing, right? When we start our fitness routines, we get so busy in getting washboard abs, hot-gun arms, and bombshell buttocks that our hands (and other such joint areas) are forgotten. That remains forgotten until we get struck with some joint related disease! So, now it is the time to think of our hands before they complain!
Benefits Of Hand Exercises:
Why do we need to do exercises for our hands? There are several reasons to do so, some of which are:
- Keeps the joints healthy.
- Builds grip strength.
- Improves hand endurance.
- Improves dexterity.
- Helps in joint related diseases like arthritis, osteoarthritis, etc.
- Builds and improves forearm muscles.
Top13 Exercises For Strong Hands:
Hand exercises can be divided into two categories – Range of Motion Exercises and Grip Strength Exercises. Here are the top thirteen exercises that you can try for healthier hands:
Range Of Motion Exercises:
These exercises improve the range of motion of your fingers and wrists, and also help in alleviating any kind of pain. The best part about these exercises is that you can do them at anytime and anywhere—while sitting in your office, watching TV, reading a book, travelling in a bus-you get the drift!
1. Hand Tendon Glide:
Start with your fingers extended straight outwards as much as you can. Now first make a hook fist. Hold for 5 seconds and then unfold. Next, make a full fist, hold for 5 seconds and then return to straight hand position. Next make a straight fist, hold and return. Repeat the whole exercise 10 times with each hand.
2. Finger Flexes:
Place the fingers of one hand on the palm of the other hand. Now gently put pressure bending the fingers as much as you can without hurting those.
3. Thumb Flexes:
Start with your fingers and thumb extended straight outwards. Now, move your thumb acrossthe palm and return to the original position. Repeat 10 times for best results.
4. Wrist Rotations:
Rotate your wrists making mini golf circles with your hands in clockwise and anti-clockwise direction. Repeat 10 times on each direction with each hand.
5. Wrist Extension and Flexion:
Start with your elbow bent at your side, palm facing downwards. Now move your palm upwards until you feel a nice stretch. Return to the original position. Then move it downwards and return to the original pose. Hold each pose for 3-5 seconds and repeat 10 times.
6. Wrist Ulnar and Radial Deviation:
Start with your elbow bent at your side and palm facing sideways and your thumb upward. Now, Move the wrist up and down through its full range of motion.
Grip Strength Exercises:
These are the exercises that help to build up that strong grip. You will need a few equipments for these exercises like a tennis ball, hand gripper, dumbbells (weight according to your comfort level) and resistance band.
7. Ball Squeeze Exercise:
Hold a tennis ball in your hand and squeeze it with all your strength. Hold the ball for 5 seconds and then relax. Repeat 10 times. On the last squeeze, start making 10-15 pulsing little squeezes without relaxing your hold. Then relax and repeat with the other hand.
8. Hand Gripper Pulses:
For hand gripper exercises, choose a good quality hand gripper. Now hold the gripper in one hand and squeeze it as long as you can. Now relax your grip for a second. After that speed up repetitions and squeeze as many times as you can in 30 seconds. But do not compromise with your grip to increase the numbers, okay? Repeat with the other hand. Keep track of your time and numbers to make ensure that you are progressing.
9. Grip Ascending Pyramid:
Hold the gripper in one hand and do one repetition. Then take the gripper in the other hand for another repetition. Now change hands again and do two reps each. Three reps each in the next round and so on. Move up to 6 reps with each hand. Then stop if you are feeling exerted. But if not, do the descending pyramid.
10.Dumbbell Rotations:
Hold a dumbbell in each hand with your arms extended at your sides parallel to the ground. Now rotate your wrists clockwise, then anti-clockwise. Make sure you choose a dumbbell you are comfortable with, not a heavy one. Do 8 reps in each direction. This exercise works your range of motion and builds your grip strength simultaneously.
If rotating with a dumbbell is a little too much for you, begin with flexing your wrist up and down while holding the dumbbell.
11. Resistance Band Exercise:
Put your foot in the middle of your resistance band and take hold of both ends, one in each hand. Now start pulling the ends toward you as high as you can, hold for 5 seconds, and then relax. Repeat it 10 times.
Another version of this exercise will be taking one end of the band in one hand and putting your foot on the other end on the floor. Now pull the end in your hand towards the ceiling and then return back towards the floor. Repeat it 10 times then do it with the other hand.
[ Read: Exercises To Keep Your Arms In Shape ]
12. Hanging:
Most of us have tried hanging to grow taller. Now, it is debatable whether hanging helps one to grow taller but surely it helps to get a stronger grip! Grab a pull up bar and hold it as if you are going to do a pull up. Now take your feet off the floor and hang supporting all your weight with your grip on the bar. Hold for as long as you can. This exercise also works on other arm muscles and even helps many people in doing pull ups.
13. Carrier’s Way:
Get anything heavy enough to give you a sweat – buckets of water, heavy barbells, or heavy bags full of books, anything with a considerable weight. Lift them off the floor with both your hands hanging at your sides. Walk around carrying your load, or better do some calf raises for 3-5 minutes. Phew! Now put it down.
Do some relaxing cool down after these exercises like Namaste (Anjali Mudra) and Reverse Namaste (Doing Anjali Mudra behind your back) and sit in Sukhasana holding Gyan Mudra. Another thing you should do after hand strengthening exercises is making a fist and opening your hand as wide as you can and repeat this action 5-8 times.
Our hands set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is time we gave them the respect and care they deserve! Start with these exercises!
Hope this article was helpful. Do share your feedback with us in the comments section.
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