I just got my first ever prosthetic arm. It’s not one of those fancy electronic hands where you can move “your” fingers. Instead, it’s one with a hook, custom-made for me by Hempel. Functionality above aesthetics. As a start, I wanted to be able to cross-country ski with a pole in my left hand, to do pull-ups with a good posture and to give out rope with my left arm when belaying. Then I figured that I could also use it on the campus board and finger board. And it would be totally cool to get an ice axe tool with it at one point (as a friend suggested). Probably I’ll find even more uses for it as I start practicing. 

For now, here is a short video of my first testing: campus board, finger board and pull-ups. Kind of a baseline.

After some practice, I’ll report back on how it’s working out and discuss its other features.

So far, for me the most beneficial aspect of it is that I can have a (more) symmetric upper-body posture during some of my training. I will especially need to train to keep my left shoulder to the back when doing the exercises because I realized that I always have it at the front (partially to give extra length). In general, it will be easier to work on a good posture with it.

Now a bit about the mechanics of how it is attached to my arm: there is a strap that uses the elbow to keep the device on my arm. However, because I can actually move my left wrist up and down a bit, I’m also supposed to just push down with my wrist to keep my hand from slipping out of the device. For example, when I’m doing pull-ups (last segment in the video), I can also just grip in the prosthesis with my left arm and not use the elbow-strap. As everything, this will also need some training.

I’ll keep you posted how it is working out for me. I’m looking forward to the experimenting!