Hand strengthening and finger strengthening are a part of occupational therapy interventions, in every day tasks. There is more to developing strong and efficient hands than just using a hand grip exerciser or therapy putty to strengthen fingers.
Here, you will find a collection of fine motor resources and hand strengthening activities that can be used to improve tone in the hands, increase stability in the thumb and fingers, develop and define arches of the hands, improve precision with in-hand manipulation, improve endurance in hand strengthening activities.
Below, you will find hand strengthening activities for kids, hand strength activities for adults, and therapy tools to develop hand strength. The activities to strengthen fine motor skills included in this post are perfect to improving grip strength, pinch strength, or as part of a finger exercises program for handwriting.
Hand Strengthening
Let’s take a closer look at hand strengthening…in fun and creative ways!
Occupational therapists use functional tasks, or daily occupations, to improve hand strength so that the clients they work with can lead functional lives: so they can have strong and efficient hands to do those tasks that take up their day.
Think about it this way: with weak hands, it is very difficult for a child to color a coloring page. But, through coloring and using crayons, they are improving their hand strength so they can color larger pictures or tackle more difficult fine motor tasks.
Adequate finger and hand strength is a crucial foundation skill necessary to successfully perform most activities of daily living such as opening snack wrappers, flushing the toilet, opening the tap, buttoning your shirt and so the list goes on.
Not only do we need adequate hand strength for our ADLs, it directly impacts on our ability to perform school related tasks such us cutting, writing and manipulating materials such as glue.
How do you know if a child has weak hands?
Hand strength is an important area of development.
Kids who struggle with hand strength may have difficulty with grasping a pencil, coloring, holding and using scissors, managing clothing fasteners, attaching a seatbelt, squeezing a glue bottle, opening and managing food containers, tying shoes. There are many fine motor activities needed in school that will be a red flag for determining if a child has weak hands.
Luckily, there are many fun ways to improve a child’s hand strength.
the best way to improve overall strength is through meaningful and motivating activities…especially everyday play!
Here, you will find a collection of pinching, pulling, and pushing activities, weight bearing activities, squeezing activities, and overall grip and pinch activities.
These ideas improve tone in the hands, increase stability in the thumb and fingers, develop and define arches of the hands, improve precision with in-hand manipulation, improve endurance in hand strength, and address hand separation into a fine motor side and a power side.
Fine Motor Strength is essential for so many reasons! From maintaining a grasp on a pencil to opening and closing scissors, to buttoning buttons, snapping snaps, tying shoes, coloring a picture without stopping, to most everything we do…hand strength matters!
So often, we see weak arches, instability, and low tone in the hands that transfers to awkward use of the hands, impractical grasps, and poor endurance in writing or coloring. Sneaking in a few strengthening activities each day can make a world of difference!
Hand Strengthening Activities
Today includes a collection of hand strengthening activities that can be used as hand strength activities for adults, and to develop hand strength. Scroll through the activities below to find creative hand strengthening ideas to improve grip strength, pinch strength, or as part of a finger exercises program for handwriting.
What Impacts Hand Strength?
Hand strength is impacted by various components. When it comes to hand strength, there is a lot to uncover. Many aspects of motor skills impact strength and endurance in the hands. Some of those areas include these concepts:
- Intrinsic hand strength
- Thumb strength and stability
- Motor control
- Separation of the sides of the hand
- In-hand manipulation
- Wrist stability
- Wrist extension
- Finger strength
- Range of motion of the arm: upper arm, forearm, wrist, fingers, and thumb
- Hand muscle tone
A hand therapist will have various hand strength norms by using a dynamometer to measure grip strength, pinch strength of various pinches. Having an understanding of hand musculature and anatomy of the hand and upper extremity is important too.
First, check out our huge online library of fine motor activities. This is a collection of all of the fine motor activities on The OT Toolbox. There’s something for everyone.
One thing that makes a big difference in fine motor dexterity is addressing separation of the sides of the hand. This post explains more about motoric separation of the hand and here is another fun activity that really strengthens those muscles.
Intrinsic Hand Strength
These OT activities using tongs are great for developing and strengthening the arches of the hands for improved intrinsic strength.
In fact, the intrinsic muscles are the muscles in the hand that define the arches of the hands, bend the knuckles, and oppose with the thumbs. Activities like this intrinsic muscle strengthening activity can easily be replicated at home or in the therapy room.
Among these muscles are a group called the lumbricals. The lumbrical muscles have a job to bend (flex) the MCP joints and extend (straighten) the PIP and DIP joints. When the lumbricals are in action, the hand might look like it is holding a plate with the big knuckles bent and the fingers extended. Read more about strengthening the intrinsic muscles here.
When kids write or color with a thumb web space area squashed shut, it’s a sign of problems. Then might be compensating for thumb instability, underdeveloped hand arches, and/or poor strength. Each of these problem areas will lead to difficulties with handwriting, dexterity, manipulation of small items like beads, and pencil grasp.
Writing with a closed web space is inefficient and will cause poor and slow handwriting, especially as kids grow and are expected to write at faster speeds. A closed web space while attempting to manage fasteners such as buttons and zippers will lead to fumbling and difficulty. So, what do you do if you’ve got a kiddo who is squashing that web space shut during functional tasks? I’ve got a few ideas on how to work on open thumb web spaces.
Thumb Strength and Stability
Here are even more ideas to promote thumb stability and tone with activities designed to open the thumb web space.
Strengthening the hand can occur through a variety of pinch and grip exercises. Here are ideas to strengthen the hands using clothespins.
In-hand manipulation Strength
In-hand manipulation is a skill requiring strength in the hands. Activities like this in-hand manipulation activity can boost these skills.
There are several aspects to in-hand manipulation:
▪ Finger-to-Palm Translation: Movement of an object from the fingers to the palm i.e. picking up a coin and moving it to the palm.
▪ Palm-to-Finger Translation: Movement of an object from the palm to the fingertips. (i.e. moving a coin from the palm to the fingertips to insert into a vending machine.)
▪ Shift: Slight adjustment of an object on or by the finger pads. (i.e. adjusting a pencil up and down in your hand.)
▪ Simple Rotation: Turning or rolling an object 90 degrees or less with the fingers moving as a unit. (i.e. unscrewing a toothpaste lid)
▪ Complex Rotation: Turning an object more than 90 degrees using isolated finger and thumb movements. (i.e. Turning a paperclip)
Each of the above skills can occur with items “squirreled away in the palm using the pinky finger and ring finger. This is called “with stabilization”. If other items are not pocketed away in the palm while in-hand manipulation occurs, it is called “without stabilization”.
Stabilization typically occurs around 2 years of age. Read more about in-hand manipulation here. Here are a couple of activity ideas that can be easily replicated at home.
Wrist Stability and Strength
Wrist stability is one of the essential areas that impact hand strength.
Due to the anatomical nature of the tendons in the forearm and hand, a stabile wrist impacts hand strength, specifically grip and pinch.
When the wrist is flexed (bent forward towards curved fingers in a grasp), there is little chance of fine motor dexterity. A flexed wrist in functional tasks limits use of the fingers due to the tendons of the fingers being shortened as they work to stabilize the wrist. The fingers just can’t move like they are supposed to.
There are many exercises and activities that can be done to build the stability of the wrist so that it maintains a slightly extended position during fine motor activities.
Upper Body Strength Impacts Hand Strength
Upper body strength is made up of the muscles in the upper chest, muscles in the upper back and muscles attached to the shoulder joint. All of these muscles work together to create stability at the shoulder joint. This shoulder girdle stability is essential for establishing a solid anchor for the rest of the arm. Without this anchor it is difficult to develop good control in the lower arm, hands and fingers. In therapy-speak we talk about developing proximal stability before we can achieve distal control.
The stronger body enables functional performance in purposeful activities, specifically strong and efficient hands.
hand strengthening activities:
Hand strengthening activities can use the items you have in your home or therapy bag. Activities that involve play are best for developing hand and finger strength in kids. Some of these ideas can integrate play and stronger hands:
- Squeeze play dough or a stress ball
- Drop beans into a bottle to make a sensory bottle
- Use a hole punch to create confetti for crafting
- Everyday play activities using small toys or manipulatives
- Weightbearing activities: play games on the floor
- Pop bubble wrap
- Attach paperclips onto the edge of a paper
- Shoot a marble into a target with the thumb
- Screw together nuts and bolts
- Tear pieces of paper
- Make dough and roll and cut cookies
- Sort, stack, and drop coins into a bank
- Use a stapler and staple remover on a bulletin board
- Freeze playdough and cut it with scissors
- Cut a slit in a tennis ball and “feed” it small objects
- Stack mini erasers
- Open and close jars and containers
- String small beads onto string or a pipe cleaner
- Tie and untie knots
- Pop beads
It’s my hope that these resources are a huge help for you! Here are a few more topics related to strength in the hands that you may need in your therapy toolbox:
- Graded Precision in Grasp
- Occupation-Centered Neat Pincer Grasp Activities
- Strengthen Tripod Grasp with Every Day Items
- DIY Clothespin Busy Bags to Strengthen Pinch
- Pinch and Dexterity Activity
- Clay Strengthening Exercises
- Handwriting Warm-Up Exercises
- The Ultimate Guide to Fine Motor Strength
How will you use the hand strengthening activities and ideas listed above? Maybe in a home exercise program or in a therapy program that runs throughout the school year? Maybe you will use the ideas at home or in a clinic. The ideas are endless!
