SEVENTH PILLAR: YOUR GRIP.

Look at the top of your hands as you move your fingers in all directions. Feel the awe of the complexity as different muscles and tendons bulge under your skin as the structure shifts. Think of the thirty-four muscles from elbow to palm work together to move four fingers and an opposable thumb, unlike any other species.

Your grip is a cornerstone of your body, a producer of both fine-movements such as writing and a powerful strike. The hand has evolved in complexity. To punch it increases its surface area to mass ratio like a weapon itself. It is very versatile.

Evolved.

Your grip was one of the drivers that paved the way for you to read these words on your device, instead of running away from a predator every day.

Early humans struck stone to break flake and shape into spear points. This, platform preparation, required significant finger pressure according to anthropologist Dr. Alastair Key. The late appearance of these traits ~500,000 years ago suggest our ancestors had to evolve a potent grip to produce these highly-modified tools. These tools could have lead to fire.

Photo Credit: Alistair Key

Our dexterous and nimble fingers allowed us to better manipulate thrown weapons and projectiles, this provided an advantage. The neanderthal was larger, and had a larger brain capacity. The species could not throw as well and had no projectile weapons, thus hunting was harder and more dangerous. The human grip is a force maximiser and evolutionary advantage that continued to drive intra-human competition. The best hunters were best rewarded.

Brain.

A dense and complex nerve network connects your hands with your brain. The Cortical Homunculus,a scaled model of brain areas, is used to analyze sensory information from the environment and relay motion commands for each body part. Size is directly related to density and complexity dedicated to each limb within these processing centres.The hands and lips are disproportionately bigger than the rest, this highlights a prominent neural wiring dedicated to these sensors.

The little man.

The use of your hands are so important a process that your brain often replaces sight with touch, feeling how it is,this is called haptic perception. These elaborate connections elicit the full range of functions of your hands, from feeling textures, to grasping onto a branch, and scrolling down your timeline.

Your grip affects the area of the brain that is associated with it for a precise grip your right hemisphere often is lit up. A power grip lights up the left hemisphere and acts as an extension of limb usually in order to deliver force and power.

Conclusion

One of the first things a baby does is grip, your cognitive age and ability is measured in your coordination. Your muscular strength weakens as you enter old age. Your hands are a vital component of strength and longevity. Grip strength is a measure of health, effectiveness of diet, reflective of other and larger trends on diet and strength in general, declining at an alarming rate.

Your grip is a specialized tool that connects you with the rest of your world, whether it be devices or textures, food, or even people. It would be a shame to let these evolutionary gifts go to waste, weakened by the lower physical demands of modernity.

Everybody benefits from stronger hands. Lift and manipulate things for strength, train your hands for precision to become a better typist. The power is in your hands to strengthen this pillar and elicit your body’s full potential.

Call to action!

Joint essay by GRITCULT. & Alex Bernier, Founder of The Online School of Exercise and author of Head To Toe — Body Pillars For Strength And Longevity. Get it today to start your victory here or on itunes, here.

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References

Boyd, C. and Boyd, C. (2019). Precision Grip vs. Power Grip. [online] High Point Strategies. Available at: http://www.highpointaz.com/news/2014/4/20/precision-grip-vs-power-grip [Accessed 1 Feb. 2019].

Key, A. J., & Dunmore, C. J. (2018). Manual restrictions on Palaeolithic technological behaviours. PeerJ, 6. doi:10.7717/peerj.5399

Senior Living Communities & Nursing Homes in Indiana | ASC. (2019). The Importance of Strong Hands | ASC Blog. [online] Available at: https://www.asccare.com/importance-strong-hands/ [Accessed 1 Feb. 2019].

Trosclair, D., Bellar, D., Judge, L., Smith, J., Mazerat, N. and Brignac, A. (2019). Hand-Grip Strength as a Predictor of Muscular Strength and Endurance.

Viegas, J. (2019). Neanderthals lacked projectile weapons. [online] msnbc.com. Available at: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28663444/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/neanderthals-lacked-projectile-weapons/#.XFS_d1X7Spr [Accessed 1 Feb. 2019].

Young, R. (2019). Evolution of the human hand: the role of throwing and clubbing.