Drop Dead Healthy

Not me. If my goal is total body health, I can’t overlook this gorgeously complex package of twenty-seven bones and thirty muscles. I will heed Napier and try to improve the ineffable capabilities of my own hands. I will have the strongest, nimblest hands I can.

The benefits might be surprising. George Washington University neuroscientist Richard Restak writes in his book Think Smart, “Since no part of the body is more functionally linked with the brain than the hands—with larger areas of the brain devoted to the fingers than to the legs, back, chest or abdomen—developing nimble finger skills is a surefire way of improving brain function.”

Another pro-hand book—The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture—argues that we have it all backward. The brain isn’t king. The brain is the hand’s handservant. We evolved our complex frontal lobes—at least in part—to allow us to manipulate our fingers. Meanwhile, philosopher/motorcycle-repair-shop-owner Matthew Crawford—the author of Shop Class as Soulcraft—says that modernity’s alienation can be blamed on manual incompetence. When we lost our ability to replace a light switch and whittle a block of wood, we lost our souls.

If you want the healthiest hands, you have to talk to a man named Greg Irwin. He calls himself “the Richard Simmons of hands, but without the shorts.” An Ohio-based musician and businessman, Irwin has a blond goatee and a wide, friendly face. He is the inventor of a grueling aerobic workout for the hands called “Finger Fitness.” You can find his videos on YouTube. If you watch them, please don’t be offended. In the intro to one, Irwin warns: “I do not feel that social gestures should restrict the smooth flow of the gestures in this video. Therefore, none of the positions you see in this video are meant to have any social meaning.”

And then he flips you the bird.

Thanks to Napier, I know that the middle finger—or “obscenus”—got its naughty rep because “the longest digit is ideally disposed to carry out indelicate scratching operations.”

But as Irwin says, giving the bird in his video is nothing personal. It’s just part of a workout in which you extend and stretch all the fingers. Irwin’s handwork is remarkable to watch. His hands blur as the fingers cross, weave, pop, do the Vulcan salute and the heavy-metal devil horns. It’s a digital ballet.

I set up a private video lesson with Greg on Skype. Several weeks ago, Greg had sent me a starter kit that included two DVDs and a pair of apricot-size silver Chinese therapy balls. I’d been meaning to practice, but I’ve been too busy washing vegetables, running laps, and sniffing my spice rack. “Let’s start with the basics,” he says. “Bend, fold, tap, press.”

I put my hands in the prayer position, bend them right, bend them left. Then I stumble. Which way do I fold them again?

Greg isn’t impressed. “You’ve had my video for weeks and you can’t do the bend, fold, tap, press?”

I sheepishly admit that’s true.

“Well”—Greg softens—“you’re probably a little nervous doing it in front of me.”

Also true.

I love Greg’s passion. He eats, sleeps, and dreams hands—and sits in them as well. His home has four hand-shaped chairs. In fact, Greg’s house is packed with the world’s largest collection of hand paraphernalia—hand-shaped cups, hand-shaped flashlights, hand-shaped jewelry—not to mention the purple handprints that decorate his bathroom walls.

He invented Finger Fitness nearly thirty years ago. He was studying music at college (incidentally, he helped develop the first electronic xylophone) and working as a dishwasher. During a break at his job, he started playing the air piano. Inspiration hit.

Skeptics often ask him why it is so important to exercise the hands. His answer: to avoid injuries, to prevent arthritis, and to allow us to live our lives in peak condition. “We’re all small muscle athletes,” says Greg. “Think of how this world would change if we all did Finger Fitness. People would type faster. Surgeons would do operations better. McDonald’s clerks would make change quicker. Older people could button their shirts.”

Greg has sold thousands of DVDs—many to musicians and athletes. He’s even appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

But he’s frustrated. “I’m dumbfounded this hasn’t caught on more. I’ve been doing this for years. I feel like I have the next peanut-butter-and-chocolate. And I can’t even get my own mom to do the exercises.”

The exception, he says, is China, which he visits several times a year. “They get it over there. Healthy hands, healthy mind.”

I feel for Greg. I was about to type “My heart goes out to Greg” but realized that’s just another instance of cardiofetishism. No, my hands go out to Greg. I promise him I’ll spread the news about Finger Fitness in my book. I pledge to do five or ten minutes a day while waiting at red lights or watching TV. Greg says he will let me know about the results of an upcoming Finger Fitness study at Winston-Salem State University.

“The hand is really devalued in Western society,” he says. When he shows his hand tricks at parties, snooty intellectuals often dismiss it as a mere gimmick. “This might sound out there, but I almost think the mind is threatened by the hands,” says Greg. Or as comedian Emo Philips once said, “I used to think the brain was the most wonderful organ in the body. Then I realized who was telling me that.”

Holding Hands

I’ve made another discovery: I shouldn’t keep my hands to myself. Holding hands is healthy. A study by James Coan, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Virginia, brought sixteen married couples into his lab and subjected them to the threat of electric shock while he studied their brains on an fMRI machine. He found that wives who were holding their husbands’ hands experienced less stress. Even holding a stranger’s hand calmed the women’s brains, though not as much.

I’ve been on a mission to hold Julie’s hand as much as possible to reduce my stress level. (Strangers’ hands, not so much. To me, the health benefits are outweighed by my fear of microbes and of getting punched in the face.) I’ve been clasping Julie’s hand a lot: as we walk, as we talk, as we watch TV.

I’m surprised how much I like it. I’d forgotten how good human contact can be, even if that contact isn’t in bed and goal-oriented. When we lock fingers, I visualize an fMRI glowing in my brain’s happiness nooks and crannies.

At first, Julie liked it, too. I even got a few “Awwws.” But she has limits. When I tried to hold her hand during a fight over how to discipline our kids, she pulled away like I was a patch of poison oak.

“It’ll lower our stress level during the fight,” I said.

“I want to be stressed during the fight. That’s the whole point.”

My sons are less discriminating. I better take advantage now, while they still let me. It’s a shame that male hand-holding is socially unacceptable in America (though not in the Middle East). Holding Jasper’s little hand on the way to school is such a joy, fleeting though it may be.

Typist’s Cramp

Thanks to Finger Fitness, my hands feel more dexterous and stronger than ever. Julie even complimented my skills when we attempted to tie plastic lanyard bracelets for the boys. If my upcoming triathlon included origami, I’d be set.

Ironically, though, this chapter has taken me a bit longer to type than usual. I switched my typing style after talking to Dr. Michael Hausman, a noted hand surgeon in New York.

Hand and wrist aches are more common than ever. New hand maladies pop up every day: Wikipedia lists BlackBerry thumb, Rubik’s wrist, Cuber’s thumb, stylus finger, and my favorite, Raver’s wrist, which you can get from repeatedly waving a glow stick in the air (see, kids, ecstasy really is bad for you).

Apple products haven’t helped. The new fad for touch screens has caused problems, including swiper’s finger, and whatever you want to call the cramps people get from pinching the images bigger and smaller.

But the most common cause is probably typing. “You remember the carriage return?” says Dr. Hausman. “The carriage return was your momentary rest. Now you just type on and on page after page with no pause and that causes lactic-acid buildup. I tell people they should get those annoying digital watches. And every ten minutes, have it beep. And then shake your hands.”

I took Hausman’s advice. Every ten minutes, my iPhone goes off. I have it set to the “slot machine” sound. I get a momentary dopamine spike before I realize I haven’t won any money and remember to shake my hands.

I don’t think I’ll continue the ten-minute alarms. Studies show that distraction is unhealthy. Lack of focus can cause depression and stress. In this case, I’m going to screw my hands.

This means I may be at risk for a repetitive stress injury. But at least I won’t get carpal tunnel syndrome, which is a separate malady that involves the squeezing of the nerve in the wrist. Despite common misconception, carpal tunnel is mostly inherited, says Hausman. One of the only activities that seem to be associated with carpal tunnel is using a vibrating power tool in a very cold room. “It showed up in people who were processing human cadavers—cutting off limbs for orthopedic use.” Hausman adds: “Jeffrey Dahmer was probably at high risk for carpal tunnel.”

Checkup: Month 23

Weight: 158

Miles walked while writing: 1,144

Push-ups till exhaustion: 167 (admittedly with several breaks)

Potatoes eaten per week: 2 (trying to eliminate, since many nutritionists think they cause weight gain)

Biceps curls using Lucas as weight: 33

My triathlon is in two weeks. I’ve convinced my trainer, Tony, to join me, so that he can share in the triumphs, humiliations, and lactic-acid body aches.

I’m training every day. Also worrying every day. Mostly, I’m terrified of the arctic water, a longtime phobia. I have spent hours scouring the Internet for ideas on how not to become hypothermic. I found the world’s only electronically heated wet suit. It’s got two graham-cracker–size lithium batteries sewn into the neoprene. Could work. In my risk assessment, electrocution is better than freezing. But it costs a thousand dollars, so Julie put the kibosh on it.

I’ve had to settle for plan B. I’ve rented my neoprene booties, my neoprene skullcap, and my full-body nonelectronic wet suit. I took them all for a test swim in the JCC pool. As I walked out of the locker room, I got some quizzical stares. Was I a Navy SEAL on a mission to assassinate one of the white-haired women in the Aquafit class?

I slid into the pool feetfirst. Unfortunately the water was eighty degrees, which won’t help me toughen up. Regardless, while I was there, I figured I’d do some laps. I started my crawl. A fiftyish man switched lanes to get farther away from me. “Your outfit is making me uncomfortable,” he said. Which gave me a virile thrill.

In nontriathlon news, I got an update on the Jack LaLanne interview. Today his publicist left a voice mail.

“I’m sorry about this, but Jack has to postpone because something has come up.”

Ugh. I’ve already bought my tickets and made my hotel reservations. He can’t honor his commitment? What kind of a man is he? Something better came up, did it?

I dialed the publicist, ready to snap at him.

“What happened?” I demanded.

“Jack’s got health problems. It doesn’t look good.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. Really not good.”

“Oh.”

“Things are shutting down.”

I’m simultaneously ashamed of my pettiness and stunned that Jack LaLanne is going to die. Jack LaLanne passing away? That doesn’t compute. He said it himself many times, “I can’t die. It would ruin my image.”

But the publicist wasn’t lying. A few days later, I read on CNN.com “Jack LaLanne, fitness guru, dies at 96.” There he is, a photo of him in his blue jumpsuit, his arms raised in the “check out my guns” pose, beaming.

First my grandfather, then LaLanne. Two vibrant men in quick succession, both gone at ninety-six.

I do an Internet search for “Jack LaLanne and Dying,” and find this quote: “I train like I’m training for the Olympics or for a Mr. America contest, the way I’ve always trained my whole life. You see, life is a battlefield. Life is survival of the fittest. How many healthy people do you know? How many happy people do you know? Think about it. People work at dying, they don’t work at living. My workout is my obligation to life. It’s my tranquilizer. It’s part of the way I tell the truth—and telling the truth is what’s kept me going all these years.”

In honor of Jack, I head off to the gym to work at living.