all posts post new thread

Kettlebell Hand health and kettlebells

Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)

PaulGy

Level 3 Valued Member
I have been doing a lot of presses with the 32 over the past few months. I noticed yesterday that it may be impacting my hands. You know when you count with you fingers and indicate '3' by the index, middle and ring fingers remaining upright and the thumb holding the little finger down? When I do that, the ring fingers are not upright The left one is almost at 45 degrees.

I know that nothing said here will be medical advice, but I am thinking I am going to have to give my bells up and go to bodyweight stuff.

If you were me would you continue with 'bells or go bodyweight?

Just as I ws making some decent progress with the 32 as well, typical!
 
A few ideas.
A hand checkout by a sports physician might not be a bad idea.
Assuming you have no pain, no prior hand injury then you should be able to continue with kbells but will have to add some things in. Do use chalk so you grip hard but it is easier to grip. Also, some flexibility and mobility for hands. For example, a rubber band around the fingertips and then you open up the fingers in an ungripping motion. Also, you can use the push up type position to work on opening up the fingers (and hands) into extension, be a bit gentle as you are potential using your bodyweight on some tiny muscles and joints that are stiff (so it seems from your description). Perhaps, gently stretch one hand and fingers at a time.
Think about getting some coaching in the press to make sure that your form is spot on. It might identify some adjustments you can make so you don't have to overgrip (if that is what you are doing).
 
PaulGy said:
I have been doing a lot of presses with the 32 over the past few months. I noticed yesterday that it may be impacting my hands. You know when you count with you fingers and indicate '3' by the index, middle and ring fingers remaining upright and the thumb holding the little finger down? When I do that, the ring fingers are not upright The left one is almost at 45 degrees.

I know that nothing said here will be medical advice, but I am thinking I am going to have to give my bells up and go to bodyweight stuff.

If you were me would you continue with 'bells or go bodyweight?

Just as I ws making some decent progress with the 32 as well, typical!
Click to expand...
Doctor…

Since you don’t know what the issue is, ’bells or bodyweight’ is not the right question. Depending upon what’s going on, you may find that things like push-ups and pull-ups (etc) are just as troublesome.

That being said…. The finger extensor exercise that @oab mentioned (and coaching) might be useful. Along with a rice bucket, and Baoding Balls. (My hands have taken a beating over the years…)
 
Thanks folks, I remember that recommendation from S & S and am already on it, going to do it for 10-15 mins a day.

I will be using the 32 again later and will try to spot what I am doing with my grip, see if I can lossen it a bit because I have never paid attention to it before.
 
When you say your ring fingers are not upright and bent at 45deg do you mean they're mean bent towards your palm or bent towards your little finger?
If they don't fully extend and remain bent towards your palm it could be an indication of what's known as Dupuytren's contracture. Most western practitioners try to treat it with corticosteroid injections and NSAIDS with limited success. I had a fairly severe case of that about 4 years ago in both hands, I treated mine myself with a method recommended by an Ayurvedic medical practitioner and it completely alleviated the problem for me & I've never had problems since.
So see a specialist and find out if that's what's happening in your case.
 
Yes, I should have been clear, towards the palm. Do you still lift, Tarzan? And what did you do to alleviate the problem?

Edit: I have seen that there is an association with rock climbing in terms of age of onset and severity so it figures that if you have the genetic susceptibility (I think my maternal grandfather had it later in life in one of his hands as I remember making a joke that he was a Viking warrior as that's the population the disease started in, though how anyone knows this I have no idea), lifting could have the same effect.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1725323/pdf/v039p00639.pdf

Damnit. I am gutted.

Pull-ups will also be a no-no, then.
 
Last edited:
Actually… the sort of standard technique these days for DuPuytrens Contracture is breaking up of the fibers that are causing the issue by using a needling technique, not by steroid injections. (Not saying that this is what you have) Apparently more common in men and those of Northern European descent, and alcoholism. I too would be interested in hearing exactly what @Tarzan did. (Even via PM)
 
@PaulGy - I have contractures in both palms. My left contracture popped up about 5 years ago. Very painful, I originally found it because of pain when supersetting barbell presses and ring pullups. I didn't know what it was, took about a year to go to the doc, he injected something into it, and I thought it was all a bunch of BS until about 6 months later it started shrinking. It is now quite small and hardly bothers me. My right one popped up about a year ago (maybe two?), quite painful... Haven't been to the doc due to lack of insurance. Workarounds for me mostly involve technique - where it is, the press (or pullup) doesn't bother it but my cleans and snatches need to be seriously spot on or the handle catches on the bump... Both are associated with the tendon that more or less seems to connect to the ring finger. At some point I'll cough up the money to get it taken care of...

Edit to add - from what the doc said, nothing "caused" it other than bum luck/genetics. This was also before I converted to the religion of kettlebells and saw the light, my training was entirely barbell-based, supplemented with pullups, jumps, and running.
 
offwidth said:
Actually… the sort of standard technique these days for DuPuytrens Contracture is breaking up of the fibers that are causing the issue by using a needling technique, not by steroid injections. (Not saying that this is what you have) Apparently more common in men and those of Northern European descent, and alcoholism. I too would be interested in hearing exactly what @Tarzan did. (Even via PM)
Click to expand...
@Tarzan, please say more about the way you dealt with yours.

My wife had this treated relatively recently. She received an injection then returned to the doctor the next day and they straightened her finger. I know this is a relatively recent thing because a student of mine saw the same doctor for the same condition - both my wife and this student are of English/Irish/Welsh extraction - but a few years earlier, and he wasn't aware of this treatment. After I told him about it, he went back to the doctor and had the same thing done as my wife did. Both people are happy with the results.

-S-
 
PaulGy said:
Yes, I should have been clear, towards the palm. Do you still lift, Tarzan? And what did you do to alleviate the problem?

Edit: I have seen that there is an association with rock climbing in terms of age of onset and severity so it figures that if you have the genetic susceptibility (I think my maternal grandfather had it later in life in one of his hands as I remember making a joke that he was a Viking warrior as that's the population the disease started in, though how anyone knows this I have no idea), lifting could have the same effect.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1725323/pdf/v039p00639.pdf

Damnit. I am gutted.

Pull-ups will also be a no-no, then.
Click to expand...
I did quite a bit of rock climbing when I was younger too, I'm sure it contributed to the issue but there's a bit of a history of it in my mothers' side of the family Grandad had a quite severe case of it (at rest his normal hand position was with the last three fingers touching his palm & the index finger just off it) & a few of my aunts and uncles had less severe cases of the same type of issue.

I can lift without problems now so it's not a terminal condition if it's treated properly. Pullups are no problem either, I hit a new PR for this cycle with a single rep with 78kg added weight @ 86kg body weight.

As I said, I treated it myself but it's not something I'd recommend on an open forum. I don't have any medical qualifications so I can't really give you much advice in good conscience, especially knowing that someone else could read what I wrote and take it out context and hurt themselves.

Try to find a reputable hand specialist would be your best bet.
 
PaulGy said:
Yes, I should have been clear, towards the palm. Do you still lift, Tarzan? And what did you do to alleviate the problem?

Edit: I have seen that there is an association with rock climbing in terms of age of onset and severity so it figures that if you have the genetic susceptibility (I think my maternal grandfather had it later in life in one of his hands as I remember making a joke that he was a Viking warrior as that's the population the disease started in, though how anyone knows this I have no idea), lifting could have the same effect.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1725323/pdf/v039p00639.pdf

Damnit. I am gutted.

Pull-ups will also be a no-no, then.
Click to expand...
First off… have you been diagnosed by a doctor? Because until you have its just speculation that its DuPuytrens.
Secondly, as @Tarzan said it’s not terminal. I had (have) it and I am 65 and still lift, do pull-ups, and climb at a relatively high standard.

Get it diagnosed, then you can choose the best course of action. Bear in mind that there are a variety of treatments all the way up to open-hand surgery. Also bear in mind that regardless of treatment a high percentage of people have it come back as well.
 
Steve Freides said:
@Tarzan, please say more about the way you dealt with yours.

My wife had this treated relatively recently. She received an injection then returned to the doctor the next day and they straightened her finger. I know this is a relatively recent thing because a student of mine saw the same doctor for the same condition - both my wife and this student are of English/Irish/Welsh extraction - but a few years earlier, and he wasn't aware of this treatment. After I told him about it, he went back to the doctor and had the same thing done as my wife did. Both people are happy with the results.

-S-
Click to expand...
Our doctors here are the laziest incompetent pack of clowns on the planet unless you have the sort of cash where money is no object. Going to a doctor here is like going to a butcher shop if you don't have top level health cover & a few thousand extra to pay for their over schedule fees. So they treat symptoms and don't really care about the cause. It's a bit different in the big cities but once you get away from the cities it's almost 3rd world standards, People here still cut their own fingers and toes off here because they can't get any satisfactory treatment for their problems. They just do the quickest treatment to get you out the door and get the next sucker in. So I got the NSAIDS and then cortisone and neither worked.

My family line is English & Scottish so there seems to be some genetic connection there. Like I said above, I'm a bit hesitant about explaining the way I treated mine. It's not really a DIY medical forum and I'm not a doctor.
 
PaulGy said:
I have been doing a lot of presses with the 32 over the past few months. I noticed yesterday that it may be impacting my hands. You know when you count with you fingers and indicate '3' by the index, middle and ring fingers remaining upright and the thumb holding the little finger down? When I do that, the ring fingers are not upright The left one is almost at 45 degrees.

I know that nothing said here will be medical advice, but I am thinking I am going to have to give my bells up and go to bodyweight stuff.

If you were me would you continue with 'bells or go bodyweight?

Just as I ws making some decent progress with the 32 as well, typical!
Click to expand...
I knew a blacksmith who was a grip enthusiast and strong man and he told me hard grip work would severely restrict wrist flexibility but I never heard of this. Even the exercise of doing presses in my limited understanding isn’t particularly taxing on the grip if at all. Daft question but could you always do it? Is it just one hand? Have you ever mangled your knuckles? A guy I know has finger straightening issues from a street fight and a poor uppercut technique. End of the day see a doctor because it could be something else. I hope it’s absolutely nothing however and you can keep at it with the bells.
 
Tarzan said:
My family line is English & Scottish so there seems to be some genetic connection there. Like I said above, I'm a bit hesitant about explaining the way I treated mine. It's not really a DIY medical forum and I'm not a doctor.
Click to expand...
@Tarzan, we are not asking for medical advice - perhaps, if you don't wish to explain what you did, you might provide a link to an article somewhere online, or otherwise tell us what source(s) you used for guidance in your self-treatment. No pressure, of course, respond only if you're OK with doing so. We're just curious - well, at least I am.

Thanks.

-S-
 
Steve Freides said:
@Tarzan, we are not asking for medical advice - perhaps, if you don't wish to explain what you did, you might provide a link to an article somewhere online, or otherwise tell us what source(s) you used for guidance in your self-treatment. No pressure, of course, respond only if you're OK with doing so. We're just curious - well, at least I am.

Thanks.

-S-
Click to expand...
Sorry for the slow reply Steve, I went to bed after my last post last night.
I don't have any links to online sources, it was advice from a neighbor who was an Ayurvedic street medicine man/yogi in India before he moved here.

He showed me how to stretch the adhesions that cause the contractures. Basically it's just pulling the finger or fingers with the problems into hyper extension (one at a time) until the adhesion releases or "pops" as he said. It's hard to explain properly but it's a very controlled stretch where your grip the whole finger tightly and then pull the finger away from the bottom knuckle and separate the joint slightly (to protect the joint capsule during the stretch) and then rotate the finger back into hyper extension until the adhesion pops. Sometimes they pop or release several times until you get full movement back in the joint. Sometimes they don't pop at all. It's a fairly painful process too.

In some ways it's similar to the relax into stretch method where you find your limit and hold it until it starts to relax and then take it bit further but it's a bit more aggressive and you have to push into pain rather stopping at the point where it gets uncomfortable.

I was a bit wary about posting the details because I believe it could possibly tear a flexor tendon in some people. I just wouldn't want anyone to do any serious damage to themselves like that on my account. I only tried it because it was my last resort. If I had the option I would have preferred get it repaired by a qualified surgeon.
 
Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)
Back
Top Bottom