GRIP continued from page 8
handshake squeezed the life out of… aieeeeeeee!!”) My parents bought me a pair of
hand grips when I was a teen. The idea was to start me on a fitness journey. (Who begins training with hand exercises?) Anyway, this turned out to be fine, since you can’t really break a sweat squeezing hand grips, and I wasn’t into sweating till later. I’d get to about 40 per hand
before my upper body seized up and my grunts could be heard in Mexico. After a couple of weeks, I expected my forearms would resemble Popeye’s. Didn’t happen. Then came my free-weight
phase. Here I employed a sort of lateral thinking. If I worked out hard with everything else, my hands would also become muscular. This was important for a wannabe
hockey guy because I’d read a study that stated the ideal hockey player had small feet and large muscular hands. My feet were average but I could still do something about those mitts. Then there was the story of
Gordie Howe who, as a youngster on his Saskatchewan farm, hurled 50 lb. bales of hay with one hand. Hence his great shot and hammering punches. Either of those would suit me fine. While I got in good shape,
my hands didn’t get bigger or appreciably stronger. (Never mind that it’s really hard to find bales of hay in suburbia.) Along the way came my writing
phase. For decades now I’ve written lots and lots of stuff. Fiction, non- fiction, you name it. My fingers have danced along keyboards for eons. You’d think the constant exercise would make a difference. I use nearly all of them. A few fingers gave up some years ago. If I were to use them
now, a sentence would look like this: “tqhwf swnte wohas wlef likwe wce.” (Right away you can see the lack of capitalization.) Writing isn’t strength training.
It’s more like finger yoga. So my hand joints should be strong and nearly immune to the very injury I’ve suffered. Unfortunately, it may very well be that my finger yoga has caused the thumb injury. It’s known as RSTS: Repetitive Sloppy Typing Syndrome. The point is, no matter the
method, I’ve not been able to develop the muscle bound hands I longed for. You younger readers ought to
take note. Start and maintain hand grip exercises now or you’re doomed to crappy typing.
Ottawa writer Richard Bercuson modestly describes himself as “A dsd whoo smd v msklwe s/D asnqkler klrg lg lwel l/wnwe sdnv pwev welk qklewwek qnb re”.
32 BOUNDER MAGAZINE
www.bounder.ca
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