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Finger exercises can be done almost at any time and almost anywhere that you find yourself, and if you are not too self conscious you can even do some of these while in the train, or while queuing in line at your local supermarket.

As a practising martial artist myself, finger strength is very important to me as you might well imagine. And so here a few of the exercises that I myself have used, and also developed over the years to build up my own finger speed, strength and overall suppleness, or dexterity. Finger strength is also increased and you will be able to poke someone really hard without the danger of breaking a finger or two. Karate is often about poking someone around like this.

Just as an interesting side fact here for you to know about, and while you are trying to build, and exercise your finger "muscles," I will point out to you this little known scientific truth or observation.

Your fingers themselves don't actually have muscles as such within the actual fingers. The muscles which are used to bend the fingers are actually found in your palm, and also some are in your forearm. They are connected to the finger bones by your tendons, and which pull on and move the fingers like the strings of one of those old puppets that some of us remember from long ago. The ones that remotely controlled the limbs of the puppet by the operator pulling on long strings, but who was always hidden somewhere behind the scenes.

The muscles in the palm are not the strong ones. They are only allowing the fingers to be pulled inwards towards the palm. The stronger muscles that really control overall finger strength are located in your forearm, and the tendon from these muscles passes through your wrist to attach to your fingers. This is why if you suffer tendonitis, or carpal tunnel syndrome you will also usually have a weak grip. Conversely however, if you build up these forearm muscles, your overall gripping strength will then increase dramatically.

But this article is about finger exercising, and increasing their inherent suppleness by stretching the tendons themselves, and so strengthening the actual pulling muscles indirectly as well. All your fingers will be exercised here, but some fingers will always remain stronger than the others as they are genetically unequal in their strength from the very beginning.

Exercise One: Finger Push Ups

For overall strengthening of fingers a difficult but effective exercise is to perform pushups on your finger tips. If this proves too difficult

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