Imagine for a moment playing football without your fingers and hands. You wouldn't be able to throw or catch a pass, properly block, or execute many other football skills. Hands are extremely important to the NFL game. There's a reason that teams measure the size of the future players' hands the NFL Combine!
When a football player possesses weakness in his fingers and hands, his performance suffers. All too often, strength and conditioning programs forget to train this important area of the body. In this article, I want to show you a quick, inexpensive and effective way to strengthen your fingers and hands. All you will need is a bucket filled 3/4 full of uncooked rice.
Preparation: To start, place the bucket of rice on a stable, waist-high table. Then, stand close enough to the bucket so your lower abdominals are touching the bucket. Place your forearms against the inner side of the bucket while digging your hands into the rice. Remember, the deeper you go into the rice with your hands, the more resistance you will receive.
Exercise 1: Move your wrist and hands up and down in a quick and powerful fashion, while keeping your forearms against the inner side of the bucket. Perform this exercise for three sets of 10 repetitions and you will definitely feels your forearm muscles working!
Exercise 2: For this exercise, the set up is the same as before with your forearms resting against the inside of the bucket and your hands dug deep into the rice. Quickly rotate your hands in a clockwise direction for 10 repetitions, and then reverse the motion to counter-clockwise for 10 repetitions. Perform three sets of 10 repetitions in each direction. This exercise will strengthen the muscles that move your hand and wrist in angular directions.
Try these simple but proven exercises and you will take your game to the next level! Hands down!
-Brett Fischer is a licensed physical therapist, certified athletic trainer, certified strength and conditioning specialist and a certified dry needling provider. He has worked with the University of Florida, New York Jets, PGA; Senior PGA TOUR and the Chicago Cubs.
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