Muscle Use For Pulling In Your Arm

When following the fingers it often happens that we pull the arm forward to reach ideal positions. When the arm is free this does not require much force, just a little "suggestion" from the finger(s). Now we have 2 sets of pullling muscles in the arm (and maybe the "grasping" quality of the lumbricals). My question is: should we use mostly the superficial flexor to pull forwards? This seems logical because I think this type of bending is more finger independent than using the deep flexor. The only "drawback" is that when we use the superficial flexor the last joint of the finger is not stable. And when we use the deep flexor we get more a "in-rolling" movement of the finger. Hope you guys know what I mean.

I'd read through the points made here and try the exercises. Superficially, it seems like curling prevents collapse and pulling from the stronger knuckle joint without a curling act would cause it. As illustrated in the post, the very opposite may be true.

Cziffra refers to a phenomenon I talk about on the DVD where if you curl the fingers using only the deep flexors (which curl the nail joint alone), the arch of the hand actually collapses, getting pulled down by the action instead of reinforced. Your question is an excellent one. It's all a question of degree. If you use the superficial flexor alone, the nail joint is not stabilized. If you use the deep flexor alone, the arch collapses. So the logical conclusion would be to use a little more superficial flexor (for power) then deep, but remember to add a certain amount of deep flexor for control of the key - as a harpsichordist would have. However, you can't really forget about the lumbrical-interosseous - without a contraction from them, the whole thing still risks collapsing - you need the whole finger "present" in a functional sense if you want to move the key effectively. AFF

I should just clarify, I definitely agree with that point- but I'm talking about a different issue. There's a rather counterintuitive mechanical reason why trying to curl the nail joint often serves to collapse and hyperextend the nail joint itself (as well as interfering with the knuckle arch, as you say). The harder a student with loose ligaments should try to resist it, the more they will actually increase their problems. However, lengthening it out slightly can suprisingly prevent from jutting abruptly into hyperextension. It seems really odd, but the post I linked has a number of diagrams offering a proof of why trying to scratch from the fingertip can actually make things substantially worse, as well as practical exercises to show how to cure the problems via subtle lengthening of the same joint. I've found that I almost never need to consciously employ any kind of closure in the nail joint now. I either actively lengthen the joints, or pull purely from the knuckle and allow the finger joint to lengthen a little, purely passively. It's possible that a subtle unconscious contraction stabilises, but I never intend to "scratch" or "grip" in the nail joint any more. Since stripping away those intentions, I never get aching finger joints anymore.