Hand and Finger Stiffness Stretches: Follow Along Video

Hey guys, this is Michelle from Virtual Hand Care, and in this video, I'm gonna show you three finger stretches to help with your finger stiffness. This is a follow-along video, so let's get started. Ready? Go ahead and prop your elbow up on a table. You can do these exercises resting on a pillow, whatever's comfortable for you. We're gonna start by using our other hand to gently push the knuckles down into as much flexion as we can. We call this MP flexion or knuckle benders. You also wanna make sure the wrist is actually relaxed back and a little bit of extension. And as you can see, as I relax my wrist back, my fingers naturally curl forward, so we wanna use that to our advantage. So go ahead and take your other hand, and you wanna push down, making sure that you do also give some emphasis to that small finger. So each of the fingers are getting some nice equal pressure down into as much MP flexion as possible. We're gonna hold that a few seconds. Now notice my fingers, when I push down, they kinda go straight. That's okay. So we're gonna hold a few seconds, and then relax. And hold a few seconds, and relax. And notice as I put pressure down, you wanna relax the fingers, the rest of these little joints as much as possible. Let them just kind of relax. Hold a few seconds, and relax. And back down, hold a few seconds. We're not gonna go straight up. We're just gonna maintain that flexion, and we're gonna try to increase our range of motion and build that flexion onto each stretch. And again, stretch back down. Making sure each finger's getting a little bit of MP flexion there. And relax. Now with this last one, what I want you to do is put a little bit of pressure down, but now what you're gonna do is we're gonna actually get a little bit of an active movement in here. So now you're gonna lightly try to curl those fingers down and back up. And you're only going up just a little bit while still putting pressure on the top of those knuckles. Let's do a couple of those. Back up, down, and back up. Down, back up. Let's do one more. Down, and back up. Good, now go ahead and just relax those fingers. The next one, let's go ahead and prop back up on our elbow. And again, relax those fingers as much as you can. Bring that wrist back in a little bit of extension. And if your fingers are relaxed, wrist is relaxed, you should already have a little bit of flexion. This one is called a place and hold. So basically what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be using our other hand. And what we're doing is we're gonna push down at the fingertips and then clasp the top of our knuckles and kinda lightly curl our fingers into our palm as much as you can do. And we're gonna hold that a few seconds. And then we wanna release our hand, but try to hold that for just a few seconds too. And relax. All right, let's do that again. Come on top, fingers down, push in. Try to get that nice little tuck with our palm. Try to get the tips of those fingers to curl in. Hold a few seconds and hold it without your hand on top and relax. All right, let's do a couple more of those. Ready, push down, curl in, hold a few seconds. Then hold on your own a few seconds and relax. All right, let's do one more. Ready, push in, hold a few seconds, and then hold a few seconds and relax that. Good, okay, this last stretch is gonna work on stretching the two little joints of our fingers because I find that those can be the most stiff. Usually the knuckles are pretty good, but we still need a little bit of care to the PIP or the DIP joints of the fingers. So what we're gonna do with this stretch is we're going to actually make a little bit of a C with our other hand and we're gonna put a little pressure on the back of the knuckle and then the thumb is gonna go on top of the fingernail on whatever finger you're working on, but we're gonna go ahead and do a few to each finger. Ready, so we're gonna push with a little bit of pressure from our index and then a little bit of pressure from our thumb and we're gonna just push back a little bit. Now this shouldn't be painful. If it's painful, then back off a little bit and don't stretch as far. So hold that a few seconds and then relax and then hold, push back. As you're trying to push down, you're also kind of pushing back. Hold a few seconds and relax. Let's do one more to that little finger. Good, and now you go to the ring finger, same thing. You're gonna put a little pressure on the knuckle and then a little pressure on the fingernail, whichever's comfortable, and then you're going to push down and then push back, holding a few seconds and relax and again, hold a few seconds and relax. Hold a few seconds and relax. Good, now let's go to the middle finger. Pushing, put a little pressure on that middle. Thumb pushes back and down with that middle finger. Holding a few seconds. Make sure the other fingers are nice and relaxed when you're doing this and relax, push back. One more, push back and relax. All right, let's go to the index finger. Push back, make sure everything else is nice and relaxed. Wrist is back and a little bit of extension. Hold a few seconds and relax. Push back, hold a few seconds, relax. Let's do one more to that index finger and you might even feel like the other fingers are getting a little bit of extra work too as you're reaching across the hand here. Push back, hold a few seconds and relax. Good, now go ahead and just do a little test to see how those fingers feel. See if you can come down a little more comfortably. Of course, you would want to replay this video to do these exercises on your other hand if you're dealing with stiffness on your other hand. If you found this video helpful, do please give it a like and hit that subscribe button below and share this video with friends and family members that have been talking about having some finger stiffness issues. I'm sure these exercises will help them. And don't forget to check out these videos here that YouTube is suggesting for you. Thanks for watching.