bencrush
Level 5 Valued Member
Strong hands heal faster...than weak hands. They are also so much more useful when everything is on the line. It's something I've seen over the past 15 years of my grip training and job in corrections. I have had various hand injuries (broken bones, dislocations of fingers, etc.) from car wrecks, work-related injuries, accidents, etc.
A stronger hand is going to have the ability to do things a weaker "average" hand can not. For instance, my latest injury was a severely dislocated pinky, a week ago. Immediately following a bad car wreck (are there any "good" car wrecks?), my left pinky was lying flat on the back of my hand. And not "resting easy." It hurt a lot. I didn't panic because I knew that even if I was down to literally just two fingers on each hand, it would equal an "average" hand in strength. I felt like I was ahead of the curve, haha.
I'm mostly joking about two fingers being equal to an average hand. But the point I'm trying to make is that I probably would've panicked a bit if I didn't have strong hands, since I was essentially not going to get any use out of my pinky. And the rest of the hand felt pretty banged up, so I didn't know if the adrenaline dump was masking a fractured hand. Which happened to me 12 years ago in the only other car wreck I've been in that exploded the airbags.
So I pawed the pinky (very painful!) back into place quickly, swallowed the tooth that was broken when the airbag exploded (we were stationary, but were rear-ended at high speed - then smashed into the SUV that was about a van-length in front of us), then realized that my van door wouldn't open. It didn't help that something was knocking into my right shin. One of the medics said it was the radiator. I've got a nice scrape and bruise from that still, even a week later.
I looked over at my wife and it was obvious that she was hurt. Her seat was broken in the impact and she was moaning in pain.
My door was partially jammed, so I had to smash it open with a combination of my left shoulder and right hand to get out of my door so that I could go over and administer aid to my wife on the passenger side of the vehicle. My left hand had to grab the door handle and apply pressure while I was ramming it with my shoulder and other hand. It might be obvious by now that my left pinky was completely useless at that point. So the rest of my fingers had to take the brunt of the pressure. And with the way the door was jammed, it was actually quite a bit of pressure that I had to exert with the injured left hand.
An "average" hand would not have been a lot of help to me in that situation. Adrenaline might've taken me through it. But I clearly remember being thankful for the 1,000th time that I had spent a lot of effort building my grip strength. I also remember thinking that I was going to open that door even if I had to bust out the window with my right hand and then crawl out.
My wife was transported to the ER and was released later that night with no broken bones. Very banged up though. She has tremendous bruising and soreness a week later.
I wasn't hurt as badly. My bruising was quite a bit less, but my body feels pretty banged up still. Healing, but not as quickly as I'd like.
However, my left pinky is making a terrific recovery - at least compared to my body. A day post-wreck, I was not able to no set close the Trainer. If I hung my pinky off the end of the handle and just used my other three fingers it would've been pretty easy. But the no set gripper test is something I use to gauge my recovery after injuries (did it for my concussion last month, too).
A stronger hand is going to have the ability to do things a weaker "average" hand can not. For instance, my latest injury was a severely dislocated pinky, a week ago. Immediately following a bad car wreck (are there any "good" car wrecks?), my left pinky was lying flat on the back of my hand. And not "resting easy." It hurt a lot. I didn't panic because I knew that even if I was down to literally just two fingers on each hand, it would equal an "average" hand in strength. I felt like I was ahead of the curve, haha.
I'm mostly joking about two fingers being equal to an average hand. But the point I'm trying to make is that I probably would've panicked a bit if I didn't have strong hands, since I was essentially not going to get any use out of my pinky. And the rest of the hand felt pretty banged up, so I didn't know if the adrenaline dump was masking a fractured hand. Which happened to me 12 years ago in the only other car wreck I've been in that exploded the airbags.
So I pawed the pinky (very painful!) back into place quickly, swallowed the tooth that was broken when the airbag exploded (we were stationary, but were rear-ended at high speed - then smashed into the SUV that was about a van-length in front of us), then realized that my van door wouldn't open. It didn't help that something was knocking into my right shin. One of the medics said it was the radiator. I've got a nice scrape and bruise from that still, even a week later.
I looked over at my wife and it was obvious that she was hurt. Her seat was broken in the impact and she was moaning in pain.
My door was partially jammed, so I had to smash it open with a combination of my left shoulder and right hand to get out of my door so that I could go over and administer aid to my wife on the passenger side of the vehicle. My left hand had to grab the door handle and apply pressure while I was ramming it with my shoulder and other hand. It might be obvious by now that my left pinky was completely useless at that point. So the rest of my fingers had to take the brunt of the pressure. And with the way the door was jammed, it was actually quite a bit of pressure that I had to exert with the injured left hand.
An "average" hand would not have been a lot of help to me in that situation. Adrenaline might've taken me through it. But I clearly remember being thankful for the 1,000th time that I had spent a lot of effort building my grip strength. I also remember thinking that I was going to open that door even if I had to bust out the window with my right hand and then crawl out.
My wife was transported to the ER and was released later that night with no broken bones. Very banged up though. She has tremendous bruising and soreness a week later.
I wasn't hurt as badly. My bruising was quite a bit less, but my body feels pretty banged up still. Healing, but not as quickly as I'd like.
However, my left pinky is making a terrific recovery - at least compared to my body. A day post-wreck, I was not able to no set close the Trainer. If I hung my pinky off the end of the handle and just used my other three fingers it would've been pretty easy. But the no set gripper test is something I use to gauge my recovery after injuries (did it for my concussion last month, too).
- Two days post-wreck I was able to no set close the Trainer and #1. I didn't try to do reps, just a single and then called it good. The #2 (still two days post-wreck) was super painful, and I failed on it.
- Four days post-wreck I was able to no set close the #2. The pain was there, but was quite a bit reduced. Still too painful to close the #2.5 though.
- Six days post-wreck I no set closed the #2.5. Definitely a bit of pain still. This is right around my current no set gripper level.
- Eight days post-wreck my pinky feels pretty strong and is what I would consider 90% healed. There is some stiffness and a bit of tenderness under clenched fist pressure. But I am pretty sure I could close a #3 with a parallel handles set this morning after work if I give it a shot.
