Improve Grip Strength With This Tool |

“We use our hands and arms for nearly all the things—brushing our hair, putting in a ponytail, opening doors or jars. That’s why it’s necessary for our grip strength to be as strong as possible,” Dr. Garcia says. “We frequently don’t take into consideration our hands as muscles because we don’t have to tell them to bend or grip, but we use them for necessary fine-motor movements in day-to-day life.”

Dr. Garcia says most of us only realize how necessary grip strength is when something affects it, like an injury, carpal tunnel syndrome, or trigger finger, a condition where tendons change into inflamed, making it difficult to bend or straighten your digits. (As someone who suffered from trigger thumb and couldn’t open a door, write, or pick up anything for a month, I can attest that is true!)

Having a powerful grip also helps lessen the possibility of injury, arthritis, and other painful conditions—not only within the hands and wrists, but within the elbow, arms, and shoulders. “I see patient after patient who has a hand, wrist, or elbow injury but can’t move their shoulder,” says Dr. Garcia. “The biomechanical complex of the hands, wrists, elbows, arms, and shoulders are like going up and down a series. Other muscles will compensate for what you’ve lost if there’s a breakdown.”

Try this easy tool to strengthen your grip

Grip strength is something we will all work on, nevertheless it becomes especially necessary as we age and change into more susceptible to muscle atrophy, says Dr. Garcia. She says the most effective and easiest ways to enhance grip strength is by wearing weighted gloves. Her favorite: Powerhandz Powerfit Fingerless Weighted Exercise Gloves ($44.99), with reinforced gel padding on the palm to guard against calluses and blisters.

Dr. Garcia recommends wearing the gloves when weightlifting, cross training, walking, or during other varieties of exercise so as to add resistance and strengthen the hand muscles. “The most effective ways to enhance grip strength is by doing exercises that bear weight on the hands and wrist like high plank,” she says, noting that adding weighted gloves will improve the outcomes.

Slipping the gloves on while performing day by day activities is one other option to improve your grip. “Wearing them when you do anything across the house will likely be essentially the most functional option to integrate weight training of the wrists and hands into your day by adding resistance to stuff you were already doing without the gloves,” Dr. Garcia says.

In the event you’re susceptible to hand and wrist problems, Dr. Garcia says you’ll be able to take things up a notch and wear the gloves while practicing the three varieties of functional grips:

Key grip

Pinch your thumb and top of your index finger and switch your wrist left or right such as you’re opening a lock.

Pinch grip

Pinch two fingers together in a small motion such as you’re picking something up.

Cylindrical grip

Grip your hands such as you’re holding a water bottle. You too can add the “hook” variation, bending your fingers the identical way you’ll as for those who’re pulling up your pants.

What it’s actually like wearing weighted gloves

I’ve been wearing the Powerfit gloves during weight training, they usually’ve really made me more aware of my grip—and that it will possibly use some improvement. I also slipped on a pair for a recent Pilates session and will really feel the increased resistance in my hands and wrists (the a whole bunch seemed more just like the hundreds.)

As someone who’s had trigger thumb and occasional bouts of carpal tunnel syndrome, I’m hoping that being conscious of my grip strength will help me avoid these painful conditions in the long run—and doing something so simple as wearing weighted gloves to accomplish that gets two (strong) thumbs up in my book.