Improving Grip Strength, Part 1 of 3

Today we're going to talk about grip strength. Maybe your grip strength isn't as good as it used to be, you're working to improve your pull-up, or you're just trying to open a jar. 

This exercise may help your grip strength. This stretch is one of a few that may help to increase grip strength, so if this doesn't work for you, stay tuned as I will post more shortly. 

We have nerves that leave our spinal cord, travel through our arms and legs and communicate with our muscles. Our hands have three primary nerves that are important for grip strength and today we're going to focus on one of them. To assess this, try opening a jar of food before and after this exercise and see if it is easier and if your grip feels stronger. 

Anytime we're working with our nerves we want to keep the tension low. On a scale of 1 to 10 you're going to stay at your perceived level of 3 out of 10. The first thing we're going to do is reach your straight arm down towards the floor. Notice how my shoulder draws down and I'm not leaning to the side, I'm just letting my shoulder reach down closer to my hip and my fingers are spread and reaching toward the floor. From here, I'm going to bring the back of my hands up towards the ceiling. You might already have some tension here, if that’s a 3/10, you stop here. Otherwise, your upper arm bone will turn out to the side. If you still have not reached your 3/10, you can tilt your head away. If you still don't have a 3 you can bring the arm up higher. Once you have your 3/10, wherever you stopped, wave the hand at the floor and nothing else changes. You might feel the tension change in your fingertips as you wave your hand, you can do about 7 repetitions here. After that, I'm going to come up to my shoulder and lift my shoulder towards my ear, you should feel the tension release followed by gently pressing the shoulder down until the tension comes back, repeat for 5-7 repetitions. After completing this, retest your grip strength and see if there was an improvement.

If you have any pain in your wrist, have been diagnosed with carpal tunnel or have constant pain in your wrist, numbness or tingling, I would avoid this particular exercise. In a future video I will show you a different exercise that may be really helpful for you.