UKC

Well I'm finally back at work, but sadly nowhere near ready to climb again.  My problem is that I have lost muscle mass in my forearm.

What little Gizmo can I get to strengthen my forearm while being kind to my tendons?

You already have one..

Pornhub does not count

GripMaster's are excellent and can be a really good rehabilitative aid. 

It works through high repetition and relatively low intensity so no need for a high tension one, just low to medium and plenty of reps/variation to build muscle tone and generally get things ready for action again. 

I've used one to desensitise old finger injuries to great effect (healed ligaments where the pain tolerance was still low and so felt 'tweaky' even though physically they were fine). 

Best of luck getting back at it! 

Buy a length of 40mm solvent weld waste pipe and cut it to about a metre long, drill a hole in it and fix a length of cord about 1.5m long through the hole.

Attach the other end of the cord to a weight of some sort, hold the tube horizontally with your hands about shoulder width apart and rotate the tube in your hands to lift the weight.

You can lower the weight slowly and then carry on rotating to lift the weight again but using your extensor muscles to balance things out.

This seems to work general pump resistance and sloper strength rather than crimp strength, but it shouldn't hurt your finger tendons. It's cheap too!

Hey mate,

I have the three pack of the metolius grip saver plus, it works your hands in contraction and extension.

https://www.metoliusclimbing.com/grip_saver_plus.html

A while back I was losing a lot of dexterity in my fingers, so I bought some black diamond exercise balls. They're just the Chinese baoding balls, but they're solid steel so it gives your hands a bit of a burn while you're spinning them.

Old school.

I like. 

However I also like gizmos, and a meter long pipe will be a bit of a bugger to use at work without drawing too much attention while I exercise.  I'll give it a go at home though.

Therabands and/or a dumbbell is probably all you need to strengthen a wrist. Therabands are probably suited to an earlier stage of rehab but you can always double them up to increase resistance. Forearm pronation/supination exercises work well with a dumbbell with weight just at one end end. Just do eccentric exercises if you want to be kind to the tendons.

Actually for wrist + forearm exercises the "normal" tendons are stronger than the muscles they connect. So there's no need to "baby" those tendons. 

Keep it Simple by doing normal obvious concentric/eccentric motions. Dumbbell has the advantage of intensity being measurable.

Ken

P.S. The "tendons" which are tricky and might need care in recovery are the little ligaments pulleys and rings in the finger joints. Those are not "normal" tendons (which connect the two ends of each skeletal muscle to bones).

Powerball is good and pretty gentle on the tendons