Hamilton man’s finger fitness may land him on national television — again

A Hamilton man is continuing his quest to promote finger fitness and hand health.

Greg Irwin started down the road to digital dexterity 30 years ago while working on a degree in music education from Miami University and preparing for a piano exam while washing dishes at Mercy South.

“I was getting ready for my scales and my chords and thought, well, if I could just exercise my fingers, and I just started (moving my fingers one at a time) with the dish gloves on,” he said. “Then I started doing two at a time.”

It took two to three years for the idea to mature and for Irwin to research the matter by talking with sports medicine people and develop a system based on three concepts: prevention, rehabilitation and maximizing a hand’s ability.

“I found out that nobody had really written a book on how to exercise your fingers and your hands,” he said. “So in 1986, my wife and I started to write our book, ‘Finger Fitness: The Art of Finger Control.’”

Over the years, with the advice of certified hand therapist, products were added and now include hand grippers, Chinese therapy balls, four “Finger Fitness” exercise videos, products for carpal tunnel treatment, fine motor skill development tools, his patented FiddlLINK Dexterity Developer and more.

Irwin’s technique isolates a hand’s natural movements via bending, folding, tapping and pushing, a system he has students memorize with the mnemonic of “better fingers take practice.” Some hand-based skill is hereditary, but some of it also boils down to working a hand’s ability, creating “small muscle athletes” among athletes, doctors, computer users, gamers, magicians, musicians, surgeons, teachers, therapists and anyone who is involved with hand-intensive activities, Irwin said.

“If you’re in good shape, you prevent problems,” he said. “The quality of life, I think a big part of it’s your hands. If your hands don’t work well, your quality of life goes down.”

Irwin, who has appeared on approximately 30 television shows in a dozen countries, showing off his limberness, dexterity and finger independence via color-coded gloves on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in 1988, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in 1997, plus “To Tell The Truth” and “You Bet Your Life,” to name a few.

Now the self-proclaimed "edutainer" is looking to get back onto TV — "The Ellen Show" is his top choice — to re-introduce the concept to a nationwide market and to promote his new book, "Finger Fitness: New Frontier" and new website handfitness.com.

But Irwin is also taking time to help on the local level, leading a group of older adults at Partners in Prime each Wednesday with finger fitness exercises.

Carolyn Whitehead, of Hamilton, said she has arthritis and would often experience sharp, shooting pain in her hand.

“Then I started doing this and once in a great while, if I jerk my hand the wrong way, it will shoot, but other than that it don’t bother me at all anymore,” White said said as she deftly shuffled two Chinese Therapy Balls in one hand. “We’ve been doing this (at Partners in Prime) for a year, and I do it at home, mainly on Monday nights while I’m watching ‘Dancing with the Stars.’”

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