Hand strength is essential to complete all types of everyday tasks. It refers to the power and force generated with the small muscles of the hands and fingers. Children need sufficient hand strength to play with toys, press buttons, and switches, build with various materials, manipulate and grasp tools and utensils. Hand strength affects academic and personal accomplishments when precise hand movements are required for more advanced tasks such as cutting, writing, typing, and self-care activities.

Hand strength is also known as fine-motor strength and grip strength.  

Adequate hand strength is necessary to push, lift, carry, and manipulate objects with fingers or the entire hand. Precision strength involves thumb and fingers to hold and maneuver objects. Whereas, power grip engages the whole hand to control objects. The frequent interplay between precision and power control is typical, depending on the activity.

“Small objects are generally held in a precision grasp primarily because of the large amount of sensory feedback available through the fingertips and the control that can be used to move them. Medium objects may be held with either pattern, and large objects are held with a power grasp.” (Case-Smith, 2009)

Infants begin to develop hand strength during the first year of life. The refinement of fine-motor strength continues through the preschool and early school years. Preschoolers need a multitude of hands-on opportunities to develop good hand strength.

Effects of Decreased Hand Strength

Children with weak hands may demonstrate challenges when:

• Lifting, pushing, pulling, and carrying weighty objects.
• Pressing resistive buttons and switches.
• Opening and closing containers.
• Screwing/unscrewing, turning, twisting, winding, spinning, crumpling, and folding tasks.
• Grasping, holding, and manipulating tools and utensils (fork/spoon, pencil/crayon, and scissors).
• Endurance when sustained grasp or use of the object is required against resistance.
• Using a sufficient amount of pressure for coloring and drawing.
• Self-care tasks such as clothing management and fastener manipulation (zippers and buttons).

Children with weak hand strength often use their whole hand to pick up and manipulate objects rather than fingers. They usually have difficulty maintaining objects in hand, appear to hold objects loosely and have a tendency to drop things. Controlled grasping and releasing of objects may appear clumsy. Children who might have potential underlying hand strength deficits generally avoid fine-motor tasks. They often dislike lengthy and complicated activities that involve precise and coordinated hand movements their peers thrive and enjoy.

10 Hand Strength Activities

Squeezing Activities (Stress Balls)

The squeezing movement develops hand strength. Designing child-friendly activities that involve applying pressure on a variety of child-friendly materials will improve hand power. Some of the tasks include squeezing: glue bottle, spray bottle, paint bottle, glitter bottle, icing tubes, sponges, cloths, newspapers, turkey baster, eyedroppers, hole puncher, clothespins, squeeze toys and stress balls.

Sensory Activities (Playdough)

Hands-on activities that provide texture enrichment and resistance for molding, rolling, kneading, pinching, poking, and manipulating influence hand strength. Most popular materials include playdough, slime, and clay. In addition, toddlers and preschoolers enjoy exploring other fun textures like kinetic sand, and slimy sand. Sculpting and creating innovative designs enhances hand control.

Animal Walks

Animal walks are fun and imaginative activities that promote gross and fine motor development. Children pretend to walk like different animals, burn off energy, and work on strengthening their bodies. Animal walks that encourage strong arms, wrists, and hands are excellent exercise for hand strength. Movements that promote body weight for resistance, such as bear walk, seal slide, crab walk, dog crawl, and wheelbarrow walk, are especially beneficial for hand development.

Blocks and Manipulatives

Playing with resistive blocks and manipulatives helps develop the small muscles of the hand and fingers. Pulling blocks apart, pressing blocks together, and innovative building contribute to hand strength. Some examples of resistive blocks include unifix cubes, bristle blocks, Duplo’s, and Legos. Some of the fun preschool manipulatives include interlocking discs and flex puzzles.

Home Activities

Functional strength tasks can be easily incorporated at-home routines. Assisting with door opening, closing, and holding (at school having the door helper) is a natural way to approach hand strength. Children might help carry groceries from the car, pick up weighty toys, and rearrange cans in the pantry. Kids love to assist in the kitchen. Mixing and forming cookies, rolling and kneading pizza dough, and pouring milk in a glass, require significant muscle control. Similarly, loading and unloading laundry, pushing, pulling, or carrying big basket will boost the child’s hand strength.

Crayons

Introducing toddlers and preschool to exclusive crayon drawing and coloring is the best decision parents and educators can to do to incorporate natural hand strengthening. Using crayons creates natural resistance, and children need to exhibit an appropriate amount of pressure to color. Coloring and drawing with crayons require more hand proficiency than using markers. Crayons are the best early childhood writing tool.

Gross Motor Activities

The big muscles develop first and provide a foundation for our small muscles to build. When the big muscles are strong, a solid base is set for the little muscles to grow. Shoulder strength, coordination, and stability will support forearm, wrist, and hand development in children. Toddlers and preschoolers need to spend ample time jumping, running, climbing, catching, throwing, and digging, sliding, and swinging for healthy hand strength development. Read more Why are Gross Motor Skills Important for Fine Motor Success.

Theraputty

Theraputty (Therapeutic putty / Therapy putty)is a resistive hand exercise material used to strengthen weak hands and fingers. Colors represent resistance levels, beginning from extra soft putty for strengthening the weak grasp to soft, medium, and firm putty for developing a stronger grip. It has a smooth and fun texture. It is a highly preferred activity for preschoolers. They enjoy pulling, pressing, pinching, kneading, and molding putty into shapes, letters, and inventive formations. Playing and creating with theraputty is a great way to increase a child’s hand strength.

Theraband

Theraband (Therapeutic band / Therapy band) is another resistive material, which improves arm and hand strength. Theraband refers to elastic bands that are color-coded for resistance levels. Bands exercises are fun and motivating. Children can use them while sitting and standing, and they can pull and stretch in various directions, pretend to be characters, and create their actions. Children grip bands firmly to stretch and hold. Incorporating bands in engaging exercise routines will help children build upper extremity strength and consequently improve hand muscle strength. 

Hand exercisers

As an occupational therapist, I also like to use hand-strengthening exercisers to target hand and finger training. Hand exercisers are designed to increase the strength of fingers, wrists, and forearms. Individual fingers can be isolated. Developing thumb, index, and middle finger strength are generally targeted with children for improved writing tool control. Many hand exercisers are color-coded to indicate resistance difficulty levels.  

Summary

Children need a sufficient amount of hand strength to complete everyday activities. Little muscles of the hand develop as children participate in regular play. As parents, teachers, and therapists, our quest is to expose, provide, and engage children in meaningful and exciting hands-on tasks. Toddlers and preschoolers benefit from daily activities that involve working against resistance to improve their hand strength. Please try some of my recommendations to strengthen your youngster’s hands today!

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