Loading ...A man’s hands say a lot about him. My own father, at 66, still has the calloused, gnarled hands of a guy who did competitive weightlifting in college and spent much of his career grappling with 1,500-pound dairy cattle as a large animal veterinarian. I, on the other hand, have the soft palms of a modern-day desk jockey. My hands are delicate, well-moisturized, and prone to blisters if I spend too much time in the garden.
And I’m not the only one. A new study in press at the Journal of Hand Therapy (yes, a real thing) finds that millennial men may have significantly weaker hands and arms than men the same age did 30 years ago.
Researchers measured the grip strength (how strongly you can squeeze something) and pinch strength (how strongly you can pinch something between two fingers) of 237 healthy full-time students aged 20 to 34 at universities in North Carolina. And especially among males, the reduction in strength compared to 30 years ago was striking.