Great Hands, Great Life!: Why Proper Hand Exercise Must Be Part of Your Life by Dr. Terry Zachary
Proper hand muscle training is essential. Therapists, trainers, grip athletes, musicians, workers, esport athletes, computer users, hobbyists & general population: What if we have been training hand muscles & grip wrong for decades? Or always? Could this entire fitness area have been misunderstood for so long? What health & performance costs have resulted? Could the hand muscles be a connection to general health, life vibrancy & life longevity? Could imbalanced hand muscles negatively affect the fingers, thumbs, wrists, carpal tunnels, forearms & elbows? Turns out the answer to ALL of these questions is… YES! Dr. Terry Zachary has been studying & training hand muscles & grip mechanics for over 25 years. He was inspired by witnessing rampant repetitive grip injuries (RGI’s) while playing professional golf on mini-tours throughout USA & Canada in the mid-90’s. Combine that experience with 10 years of private practise as a sports & family chiropractor & many questions about standard ‘squeeze-only’ hand exercise were brought to question. Dr. Zachary had especially been ‘woken up’ to the importance of hand exercise via studying elbow & wrist injuries in professional golfers, a pervasive problem. Most every study and expert pinned the blame on wrist extensor tendonitis as the root cause of tennis elbow. Dr. Zachary disagreed strongly. He studied the principles of grip & developed the term ‘kinetic chain of grip’ to explain how forearm muscles contract to support wrist position during grip, grasp or finger action & how the finger extensor muscles in turn contract to support finger flexor muscles. In the kinetic chain of grip, the finger extensor muscles are constantly contracting. The main finger extensor muscles attach at the lateral epicondyle & are thus a factor in most, if not all, tennis elbow cases. Dr. Zachary further explored the common presence of imbalanced hand muscles in relation to finger, thumb, wrist, carpal tunnel, forearm & elbow breakdown. He recognized a poor posture parallel of the hand muscles; but the training & rebalancing took too long, was confusing & used too many tools. And each tool did not move the hands naturally through full, 3-dimensional ranges of motion (ROMs). A close friend who was travelling with Dr. Zachary as a professional golfer developed tennis elbow & Dr. Zachary responded by developing what is now Handmaster Plus. Handmaster Plus made complete hand & grip exercise easy & convenient for the masses, coupling multiple exercises into few, eliminating the need for multiple resistance items. The ‘HC/HO Exercise,’ the ‘Figure 8 Exercise’ and the ‘Finger Tip Grip Exercise’ have become common exercises in NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, PGA, ATP circles as well as in amateur grip sports, music, workplace ergonomics, esports, computers & hobby. ‘Great Hands, Great Life!’ explains general hand muscle layout & function, & illustrates well how imbalanced hand muscles affect the stability of all upper extremity structures from the elbow to finger & thumb tips. He gives exercises that are easy-to-do so that each user’s grip is balanced & the kinetic chain of grip is solid & stable. Dr. Zachary reviews dozens of studies in the book that relate hand exercise to numerous disease conditions, even to the extent of multiple famous studies that draw direct correlations between grip strength & life longevity. Dr. Zachary also illustrates how proper hand exercise stimulates maximum circulation that likely affects the whole body. Hand exercise improves lymph flow, in turn stimulating lymphatic duct drainage, a key to removing toxins from the head, neck, body and brain. We have ignored hand exercise for far too long. Dr. Zachary teaches us that we need to rethink the importance of the hands if we expect high performance, low risk of injury, & a long life. ‘Great Hands, Great Life!’ is an easy read for all. Experts can absorb. Lay people are encouraged to skip when so moved. Everyone learns! Everyone benefits! Win! Win!
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