How to stretch your fingers and toes and why
This is a question I received from a reader of my ebook “15 Healthy Habits For The Body”. One of the habits I mentioned in it is to stretch your fingers and toes.
There are many ways to stretch fingers and toes. By stretching your fingers, toes and consequently wrists and ankles you:
– improve the blood circulation to those areas
– you relax your tendons, ligaments, muscles which leads to relaxation further up the arm or leg and better connectivity to the hands/fingers, feet/toes
– reduce the risk of plantar fascia or carpal tunnel syndrome
– improve range of movement in your hands, wrists, feet, ankles and thus freedom of movement
Today I will talk about 3 ways to stretch your toes or fingers.
1. To stretch your fingers. Stretch your arm out in front of you, without bending it and with fingers facing down (as much as it goes alone without pressure).
Take each finger and slowly pull it down and towards you. When you reach the thumbs it gets a bit tangled. For a good thumb stretch follow these 3 steps:
Step 1: place the back of your hands together, so that one palm faces you, one palm faces away from you. The hand facing you will be the hand you will stretch. Both thumbs are now next to each other. Got that?
Step 2: now wrap the thumb and the index finger of the hand facing away from you around the thumb you will stretch (that is the hand facing you)
Step 3: slowly start pull the thumb down
Repeat on the other hand
2. To stretch your toes, one at a time, sit down with your knee close to your chest so you can reach your toes. Then simply take on toe at a time and slowly pull it towards you.
This is the stretch I use mostly because it is easier to control. There is no body weight on them and you stretch as far as you feel comfortable.
3. Another method to stretch your toes is to kneel, and sit on your heels with your toes tucked in. This is a great stretch for toes and sole of the foot. This can be a deep stretch and sometimes painful if the range of movement in the toes is limited.
4. For fingers, instead of stretching one at a time you can stretch them all in the same time by holding your palm facing up and slowly pulling your fingers down towards the floor. This one will stretch all fingers except the thumb. For thumbs use the technique at point 1.
However, because every finger has a different range of mobility some may stretch less or more than others.
Try these stretches, let me know how you get along and if you need any further guidance. Practice the finger stretches especially if you type a lot. Take 30 sec from time to time and stretch your fingers. It will make a big difference.
And remember Be Mindful
If you’d like to learn more please download my free eBook “15 Healthy Habits For The Body” or book a free consultation with me.