Handy Tips for Making Hands Stronger --Week 23

My clients love the scooterboard. I always start out prone…because I think it is harder, and I can always bribe them with the sitting to get the prone work done. I pull my clients in a circuit around our building. Remember the floor’s surface significantly affects the level of difficulty this exercise is with your client. Hard slick floor like vinyl tile or wood flooring is the easiest, followed by thin carpet. Thick carpet is the most resistant. So modify the flooring your traverse according to the child’s strength. If a child is really weak, I may have to help her hold the hoop hand over hand. This gets back breaking quickly! For some reason it is not uncommon for my weak children to want to hold the hoop with a supinated grasp. I always flip their hands back to pronated. More experienced children don’t make this mistake. The hoop I have used in this photograph is the hand grip rim I have taken off a defunct manual propel wheelchair. Standard hula hoops usually aren’t strong enough…so choose your hoops carefully. I start with the child holding onto a hoop and work up to the child holding a rope. I personally find it easier for me to maneuver the hallways pulling a child with a rope versus the hoop. The rope is a much less stable support to hold onto…so it is more challenging for the child. I use a 1” (2.5 cm) thickness soft rope I got from a hardware store. I had the rope cut to about 16’ (4.9 m) long. I knot the end of the ropes to make it a little easier to grip. Then I have the child hold the 2 ends of the rope. I hold the middle. When I am emphasizing hand strength, I pull the client in spurts if she can handle it. Sometimes I pull so hard and strong that the child pulls up passed me as she rides on the scooterboard. This always adds some humor as I playfully fuss at her for passing me by and to please let me catch up. For an even greater challenge, I have been known to make a double scooterboard train. I have a sibling ride on a 2nd scooterboard behind my client. The sibling holds onto my client’s heels. This of course adds significantly to the resistance/weight …but also to the laughter as there always seems to be mishaps along the way.