Infants / Junior School

Week 3: Finger Conditioning and Strengthening

Learning Objective: Apply pressure on the fingers and apply the same force that are usually used when climbing up the wall. This exercise focus on loading the fingers with your own body weight. Highly recommend you do this once a day to recruit the finger muscles and tendon.

Duration: 4-6 mins

Equipment: None! Just need to find an edge of a wall

IMPORTANT:

*STOP AT ANY TIME YOU FEEL ANY PAIN OR DISCOMFORT ON YOUR FINGERS / WRIST AND REST

Straight-fingers.mp4

open-hand grip

Stand close to edge of the wall (start off with 2 steps away)
Place fingertips firmly on edge
Straighten elbow and lean back
Load for 5 seconds on one arm

If you can barely hang for 3 seconds, take one more step away from the edge to lower the intensity

5. Take 5 seconds rest, switch arms and start right away

6. Complete 8-10 hangs for each arm

Focus:

Press fingertips against the edge
Keep fingers as straight as possible, slightly bent is fine
Keep your chest as close to the wall as possible
Once you easily complete 10 hangs (each arm) and still have lots of energy left, progressively stand closer to the edge of the wall to increase intensity

Image: Journal of Sports Sciences (Amca et al., 2012)