Short-term effects of running exercise on pinch strength, grip strength, and manual dexterity of the dominant and non-dominant hands.

Occupations including first responders and military require manual tasks; therefore changes in hand strength and dexterity could affect performance. We hypothesised that pinch strength, grip strength, and dexterity will change after unloaded and loaded exercise. Twenty-four male (25 ± 4.0 yrs; 86.3 ± 9.3 kg) and 10 female (25 ± 6.0 yrs; 62.1 ± 5.9 kg) participants completed 3 conditions for 5 minutes: (1) no exercise (2) run with no load at 3.0 m/s and (3) run wearing a 9.1 kg belt. Heart rate was different among conditions (p ≤ 0.05). Pinch strength was significantly different for the non-dominant hand after exercise (p = 0.005) for male participants, but not for the dominant hand. Grip strength was significantly different for the non-dominant hand between loaded and unloaded run (p = 0.035) for male participants. Pinch and grip strength did not change after exercise for female participants. Dexterity times were not different after exercise, but female participants were significantly faster (p ≤ 0.039) than male participants.