- Okay, we're going to show you seven mobility exercises.
- Okay.
- And four strengthening exercises for your hands.
It's mainly for people with rheumatoid arthritis.
- Not just regular arthritis?
- It could be regular arthritis too.
- Yeah. You know, I'm thinking,
get those hands moving, get some strength in there.
It's going to help out all these different ailments
where you have stiffness in your hands.
- All right. Stick around.
- Stick around.
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(whip sound)
- Okay. To guide you, Brad.
- Yes.
- We have made a sheet that you can go into comments below.
- Yup.
- Click on it and print it off.
- That's kind of nice.
So, we have an exercise program,
so, you can keep track of these exercises
without looking at our videos.
- Right.
- Yeah.
- Or seeing us again.
- Yeah. I mean, you don't have to listen to us babble.
(whip sound)
- All right. The first one is the tabletop.
You make a tabletop with your fingers.
- Yeah.
- You hold it for five seconds. Relax.
- Can you do both hands at once?
- You could do and have your hands up like this
to help with swelling too.
- Oh yeah. Yeah.
And if you keep them together it looks like a tabletop.
- Right.
- Little better visual.
- If you have trouble with this you could put it on a table.
- Oh, right.
- A tabletop.
- Yeah. So, like if you're sitting down actually yeah.
Relaxes the shoulders a little bit.
I do this, and then you just kind of relax.
- Right.
And work up to start with five reps.
- Yup.
- And work up to 10.
- Sure.
(whip sound)
- Next one we call the small claw.
- Small claw.
- So, you're just going to flex the end joints.
- Yeah. So, just the finger joints.
Now, I know from personal experience
when I have stiff fingers in the morning
there's no way I can do this.
- Yup. Hold for five seconds.
- You got to loosen them up a little bit.
And I actually squeeze a little bit here.
- Yup. Look at mine Brad. This one is.
- Oh yeah. Well, squeeze that in.
- Right. See how that one troublemaker?
- Yeah.
And how long we hold it in there once it?
- Five seconds.
- Five. One, two, three. And then what relax?
- Relax.
- Little wiggle maybe?
- And start with five reps. Work up to 10.
- Both hands at the same time.
- Yeah. Same time. Right.
- Yeah. You got to be time efficient, you know?
We got work to do.
- I'm even worse on this one.
- Yeah. Don't worry about it.
- That's my Dupuytrens.
- Yeah. Dupuytrens.
Yeah. We'll figure that out.
- All right.
(whip sound)
Next one is called the fingers in the crease.
So, you take your fingertips
and you take them down to the crease of your hand.
- Is that the lifeline? No, that's not the lifeline.
That's another one.
- I think it might be, right?
- I don't know.
- One of them.
(Bob laughs)
- Now, if you have arthritis,
- Yours look short.
- You're going to find, and your stiff,
you're not going to get those fingertips there right away.
- Right. Again, my Dupuytrens, I can't get it in there.
- Yup.
- You might stretch it with the other hand.
- This is the way I have people do it as well as myself.
Get it loosened up.
- Five-second hold.
- Ooh.
- Five reps.
- This you call is a fist, Bob. It looks like a fist.
- Work up to 10.
(whip sound)
- The next one is called the duck beak
but I wish I would've called it one hand clap
cause you're actually clapping.
But you hold for five seconds.
- So, the fingertips actually go way down
towards the wrist as opposed to tucking under.
- Yeah. Last joint is not flexed.
- Yup.
- It's straight.
- Yup.
- So, just like this hold for five seconds.
One, two, three, four, five.
(Brad laughs)
- Yeah. If you're just starting out
one, two, three, four, five is better.
- One, two, three, four, five.
Five repetitions.
One, two, three, four, five.
- I can feel it on my trigger finger on my middle finger.
- Oh, can you really?
- Yeah. It's popping it a little bit.
- Two, three, four, five.
Very good.
Work up to 10.
(whip sound)
The next one I call it the friendly thumb
because he goes and says hi to each finger.
- Yeah.
- So, one hold five.
- This reminds me of the little piggy goes to the market.
When you count the toes on your kids
when they're two years old.
- Cried, wee, wee, wee.
- All the way home.
- Oh, the memories.
(Brad laughs)
- And now she's getting married.
- Yeah. My little baby's getting married Saturday.
- You think you'll cry?
- I don't want to talk about it.
- Oh geez.
(Brad laughs)
- He's going to cry.
- We're going to do the father-daughter dance.
Should we practice?
- With me?
- Yeah.
(Brad and Bob laugh)
- Oh. Next one.
(whip sound)
- All right. The next one is called the walk to thumb.
And it's for ulnar drift, which is this.
Where you see a lot of people get their hands deformed
to the point where the fingers are way over to the side.
- Yeah. And they always drift out towards the ulnar bone.
That's why it's called the ulnar drift.
- Now, this will not correct it,
but it will help prevent it.
- Sure. Gives it a little.
- So, want to show the walk to Brad? Walk to thumb.
- You should be able to,
you don't have to do this on your thighs.
You can do it there or on a table.
- [Bob] Table, right.
- [Brad] But you'll see, I'm going to start with my finger.
I'm going to do, go this way.
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] And then the middle finger to the finger,
and then the ring finger to the middle finger,
and then the baby finger to the ring finger.
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] And then you go back to here to start over.
- [Bob] Yup.
- [Brad] Don't find yourself going this way
because that's the wrong direction.
- [Bob] Again, five reps.
- [Brad] Yup. Oh.
- Repetitions and eventually work up to 10.
- This works those little muscles in your fingers.
You're going to feel some fatigue in the palm.
- That's why we start with five.
- Yup.
- Yeah. Shake it out.
(whip sound)
- Okay. Next, we're going to do wrist circles.
You actually straighten your arms out
and you're going to go one direction.
Can probably do 10, huh?
- Sure. I think ten's a good number for this, Bob.
- And then 10 in the other direction.
- You may hear the joints.
- Clockwise, counterclockwise.
- Yup. You may hear the joints
crinkle and crackle a little bit. That's okay.
- Just saying hi to you.
(Bob and Brad laugh)
- Waking them up.
(whip sound)
- All right. We're actually using,
they're called Fit Simplify.
- Yeah. Just a little kit.
You get these little loop bands.
There's five different colors.
Five different resistance levels.
- Yup. Just grab with your fingers. Not the thumb.
- Okay.
- And you're going to actually put your elbows to your side.
- Okay.
- And you're going to extend the wrist.
- Good shoulder posture. Bring them back.
I really like this one.
I think we both do because it strengthens the fingers.
- And the wrist.
- And the rotator cuff.
- There you go.
The right muscles up there.
So, you get three different areas.
- That green is the easiest one, right?
- It is. You'll start, definitely start with this one.
- Probably again, five reps and work up to 10.
- Yeah. You're going to feel these muscles here working.
- Yup.
- And that's good.
- They go right into the hand.
- Yup.
(whip sound)
- All right.
The next strengthening exercise
is actually you're going to do ball squeezes.
Brad has an interesting ball there.
- Yeah. For arthritic, hands you want a ball
that's soft and pretty forgiving.
And this happens to be one and it actually, it feels neat.
It's just kind of therapeutic, squeezing it for me.
But yeah. So, you're just going to work it.
You can work like the thumb.
You can work individual fingers just to get some motion.
- We got that coming up Brad.
- Huh?
We got that coming up.
- Oh, I jumped the gun. Sorry.
Yeah. I think I found this on an end cap at a,
like a little store that my, where a craft store.
That's where I got it.
- Right. We do have a kit too for more advanced people.
- Ah, yes.
- We got a squeezer. Grip strength for that.
With a counter on it.
- Then this one does individual fingers,
which is kind of handy,
particularly for arthritic people I believe.
- And this is a nice one.
It's a ring, but it is easy to squeeze.
- Right.
And if you rotate it 90 degrees, it changes the resistance
which is kind of a convenient way to do it.
- Easier, yeah.
And then finally we got the egg.
- The egg ball.
This one you'll probably use the least.
It all depends on.
- Again, you could do thumb to finger,
but yeah, we'll be talking about that.
- Yup.
(whip sound)
- All right. On the next one,
you need a little bit of foam or a sponge.
- Yeah.
- And you just put it between the fingers.
- You wouldn't know this Bob,
but like if you do dishes
sometimes you have those, you use those.
(Brad laughs)
- Really? What amazing thing.
So, you are going to squeeze your fingers together.
One, two, three, four, five.
- Ooh.
- And then, the next one.
One, two, three, four, five.
- Little squishy ball works good for this one too.
- And you could do well.
We'll do the thumb next.
- Okay.
- Yeah. These are little muscles
that you usually don't exercise, but it's important.
- Yup. Five reps work up to 10.
(whip sound)
Alright on this next one, Brad, you want to be careful
because if your thumb is unstable
and you can ask your doctor if it is.
- Yeah.
- I don't want you doing this one.
- My thumb actually dislocates.
- It does.
- When I'm working, and it hurts. I know I've.
- You know what a table is?
- Yeah. This would be a good one for it.
- You might get a brace for it.
- Sure.
- If you do, but you going to say hi to every finger again.
- So, squish. There we go.
Squeeze with this five to 10 times
or more depending how you're feeling.
You'll feel it much more difficult on the small fingers.
- It's more of a challenge.
- Yup. Yup.
All right. Nice work, Bob.
- There we go.
- Now, if you do have one of these
and you want to have fun with the grandkids,
you put it underneath your jaw and go.
- [Bob] Like a frog.
- Yeah. Just a little fun thing to do.
- And again, the sheet is, you know,
below, just click on the link.
- Yeah. Get that PDF printout.
It's nice to have it on paper.
Because we know this is older people.
(Bob laughs)
Older people like paper.
(whip sound)
- All right, Brad,
we can fix just about anything except for.
- A broken heart.
- Well Bob, why Bob? Why?
This is, you know you could,
I think you can fold a broken heart. Like this.
- Let's hope.
- Forget it.
Good luck everyone.
- Good luck.
(upbeat music)