Are You Overdoing Finger Exercises to Deal with Pain?
The “common knowledge” of what to do about finger pain is often very misleading.
take a swollen knuckle, for example.
If you have a chronically swollen knuckle, it's really likely you've got some sort of cartilage irritation (likely a small tear) inside the joint. Hyaline cartilage (purple lines in the below image) is the type of tissue that lines the end of every long bone in the body.
As joints become more "close packed" (move closer together) those joint surfaces press together.
when you overdo that motion
If you do that enough in one session, training cycle, or season you can get small tears in the cartilage (think lots of full crimping). That's a direct reflection of chronically dehydrating the cartilage, increasing surface temperature, and tearing protein fibers.
Think of it as the equivalent of biting the inside of your cheek. You initially get a small tear, it gets inflamed and sore, and it's easier to do again if you aren’t careful with how you chew.
This does not mean you can't load the finger; however, it does mean that you need to be cautious with the range of motion, velocity, and training volume.
exercises can be counterproductive to healing
In the context of this injury, another "exercise" that would be completely counterproductive would be finger glides.
Bringing your fingertips to your palm and rolling them into your hand makes absolutely no sense for this injury. It would in fact continue to aggravate the cartilage and further create an inflammatory cascade inside the athletes joint.
And we don’t want that!
Key takeaways:
There are no easy fix exercises to treat finger injuries.
Doing something like finger-glides on a regular basis is not necessarily “healthy” for the joints of your fingers.
It really comes down to understanding the why behind any intervention. Everything comes with a cost.