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[clarentine]

Anyone want to suggest some nice, non-joint-stressing exercises for hand and arm (and shoulder) strengthening? I'm realizing lately that my range of motion issues have affected, negatively, my muscular strength, and this bothers me.

::pines for the ability to scale walls, underappreciated while I had it::

Assumptions to take into account: no gym/pool access. Range of motion is limited, but I'm aware that exercise increases it somewhat. Not adverse to a certain degree of pain. Must be something I can work into an already hectic schedule. Will not be going out to buy One More Gadget (e.g., veteran and survivor of the home gym movement).

Comments

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

Do you do any sort of daily stretching? That might be a good place to start if you don't. I do neck rolls, shoulder rolls, wrist rolls to start... I have a whole top to bottom stretching routine I intend to do every day (but don't always manage).

Strengthen your core muscles and you strengthen your whole body... I actually just wrote an article about how "functional" exercise (like things you do around the house: vaccuuming, cleaning, shoveling snow) is the best kind of workout because it doesn't isolate one particular muscle group, it helps the whole body. Resistance training is key for building up muscle.... and boosting metabolism.

[clarentine]

I tried Pilates for a little while, but what my joints can take one day might be too much the next session, or the next, so I had a hard time keeping up with the class's building routine. Which made me sad.

I do stretch--I tend to stiffen overnight--but not in any defined pattern. I've considered doing some yoga at home with a DVD. (Let me tell you, yoga to DVD is a dog's best friend. *g* I think Kay thought I was getting on the floor to play with her!)

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

How about something like qigong? Might be less stressful on you than Pilates... (There's some beginner type moves here (http://tags.families.com/qigong).)

[clarentine]

Interesting. Reminds me of what I've seen of tai chi. I'll have to see if some of those shoulder-arm positions will work for me.

[lotusice.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you're talking impact strain for your joints or not, but one of the best things I've ever done for upper body strength in general is to buy an over the door chin up bar: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11hKRi5UukL.jpg

You can start by just hanging, using a footstool or something if you can't take a lot of weight.

Then you work up to pulling yourself up. My technique was half-inch pullups, multiple repetitions, in sets with rest. You increase the height, stay at the reps, until you can do full pullups.

I also use dumbbells I picked up at the swap meet, to do curls of every kind, including finger curls, wrist curls, preacher curls.

But honestly, your chinup bar hits most of those muscles anyway and I think it's harder to work effectively in isolation.

[clarentine]

I'd love to use a chinup bar - we have one! - but my shoulders can't take the stress of hanging there, much less pulling myself up. (The culprit is lupus, fortunately not a particularly bad case, but nevertheless an issue.) Sometimes just getting my arms straight up above my head can be difficult...which probably means I need to do it more.

Hmm. Maybe just using the chinup bar to help me stretch the arms above my head might work.

[lotusice.livejournal.com]

Yeah, start there, and don't overdo!! If you use a footstool you can control the amount of weight in the hang.

Meanwhile, for less stress, one of my favorite firefighting exercises for hand/wrist was tying a weight (iron skillet, weight, whatever) to a rope, rope to a broomhandle. Hold the broomhandle in both hands out in front of you. Wind up the rope, using your hands to rotate the broomhandle. Wind, unwind. Pay attention to form, don't use too much weight. It's a fun one.

[clarentine]

Oh! That would certainly stretch out the arms and give the shoulders some toning. Good idea.

[brni.livejournal.com]

i know you said you aren't going to go out to buy more equipment, but...

get a length of stretchy rubber tubing. tie a knot in each end. put one end against the doorframe and close the door to hold it in place. then you pull the tube from the other end. by placing the the tube in different positions in the doorframe and pulling in different directions (forward, backward, sideways, whatever) you exercise different muscles. is what they gave me for rehab after my car accident. nice thing about it is that it only ever puts as much stress on you as you yourself create, so you have full control of it.

for wrist exercises, take a roll of quarters and just do wrist bends in different directions.

[clarentine]

At least tubing doesn't take up as much space as the unlamented Bowflex machine. *g* Thanks for the suggestions.