We do cardio exercise for our hearts and to stay trim, we lift weights to keep our bodies strong and looking lean, but what about our feet and hands?
So many of the aches and pains in our bodies come from not properly exercising our hands and feet. For instance, we shove our feet in shoes all day long….shoes that may not fit properly or we wear skyscaper heels! And then we wonder why our back is killing us?!!!
We grab things with our hands without taking a firm grip on them and then wonder why our wrists and fingers are stiff.
Hands need attention too…and I’m not talking about typing and texting as exercise. We need to flex each individual digit of our fingers and then extend it, just like we do our spines! Working on the hands will help with
-
Circulation
-
Staving off arthritis or help limber those stiff joints up
-
Help with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
This exercise was developed by Clara Pilates (Joe’s Wife) She called it “Castanets”.
1. Stand with your feet firmly on the floor, spine straight and tall and your abdominals pulled in.
2. Hold your arms down in front of you in a cupped position
3. Starting with the pinkie finger, flex that digit until it touches the middle of your cupped palm, then flick it backwards quickly and forcefully.
4. Repeat with all the other fingers and thumb. You can choose to do one hand at a time or both at the same time.
5. Repeat this exercise 3 times through.
6. Next lift your arms about chest high like you are holding onto a big beach ball. Repeat the fingers touching the middle of the palm and then flicking them backwards one at a time. Do three sets of flexing and flicking your fingers and thumb.
7. Lastly, lift the arms over the head still visualizing hanging onto a big beach ball and repeat the procedure.
Hopefully you will have noticed that your flexibility in your fingers got better as you went and that your hands felt “alive” and circulation was moving. You may also notice that the hands are a little pink from the circulation you just created!
Practice this exercise once a day or more often if you use your hands a lot.
Happy Castanet-ing!
