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Thursday, January 26, 2012

 

Hand Exercise 101 - Stress Balls Are Not Anti-Stress Balls

I just witnessed a bank teller squeezing a "stress ball" at the bank during my visit. I was drawn to talk to her about it, and asked her if she knew anything about hand muscle exercise. It is not really a fair question, because not many people do know about the hand muscles and especially about proper hand muscle exercise. Her answer was "No, it was given to me by a friend." Some friend.
This is a common error I see that people make because they do not know any better. Somehow as a society we have come to accept the term "stress reliever" when it comes to a common cheap promotional squeeze ball. The mechanics are dead wrong. The theory is that when we squeeze these stress reliever balls, our stress will go away. That in itself is very questionable but I can definitely give the reader an insight into the long-term effect of this thinking. And remember, it is thinking that is part of our belief system about our hands and about hand exercise. By the way, it is also the root case of tennis elbow, golfer's elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome and DeQuervain's Syndrome.
We do nothing but close our hands in daily exercise, why do we need to continue to do so in exercise. We need balance. Let's think about this.
What I can tell you is that daily squeezing of these stress balls can only cause stress in the long-term. It is a poor if not harmful exercise, but yet millions of people do it every day. The reason is that it is affordable and people don't know any better.
I developed Handmaster Plus so that people have an easy and affordable alternative to simply squeezing a ball. Squeezing a ball will definitely lead to muscle imbalance, whereby the muscles that close the hand become dominant and shortened compared to the muscles that open the hand. This is a hugely underrated imbalance in our bodies today as hand muscle imbalance affects the stability of the fingers, thumb, hand, wrist, forearm and elbow. The muscles of the hand are that far-reaching. So even if the user of a squeeze ball feels good for a short time, they certainly won't for a long time.
Imagine if one of your friends told you to exercise your chest for stress, they told you to only exercise your chest muscles and never the offsetting back muscles. This would seem ridiculous to most people because of the imbalance that would eventually occur. For some reason our society does not see the hands and balanced hand exercise as we do the rest of the body.
Let's change the definition of an antistress ball to be a stress ball, because they will definitely cause stress in the long-term due to the imbalance nature of this poor exercise. Handmaster Plus strengthens the muscles that close the hand as well as the muscles that open the hand and does so in one continuous exercise and is a true antistress ball. The short-term complete exercise stimulates maximum blood flow and lymphatic drainage which relieves stress in the short term and also strengthens and balances the 18 muscles (nine muscles close the hand and nine muscles open the hand) which relieves stress in the long-term.
Please people no more stress squeeze balls. Balanced hand exercise
is available. Find more information or purchase a healthy modern antistress ball for yourself or a friend at www.handmasterplus.com. And please no more bad hand exercise advice!

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