Wine Cork Exercise Magic

A wide swath of vinopinion today holds that screw tops are suitable for wines not destined for long term aging: the bulk of most wines consumed today. This author, who is also a musician, sees the logic to this, yet he treasures his corks as hand and finger exercising tools.

The standard natural wine cork as shown in the photos has just enough resistance and just enough give to function as an ideal hand and finger exerciser; in fact it is these same properties that make a (presumably taint-free) cork ideal as a wine stopper. The exercises pictured herein are largely but not entirely isometric, and should for most musicians be possible without risk of injury or strain.

While it may be obvious that screw top closures are not suited for these kind of exercises, it should be noted that artificial and composite corks also do not work well. A good, full-sized natural cork provides the appropriate properties.

A number of cork exercises are possible. Here are a few basic exercise types:

1. Hold the cork between two fingers like a cigarette as shown in photo 1A. Squeeze the fingers together then relax using a pumping action. Achieve different levels of exercise by holding the cork further up or further down as shown in photos 1B and 1C, or try the twin maneuver with two corks as shown in photo 1D.

2. Exert pressure lengthwise on the cork by holding it between the tip of the thumb and the end of each of the fingers in turn as shown in photo 2A. As a variant, try the fingertip to fingertip technique shown in Photo 2B

3. Using two nicely matched corks, nestle the corks horizontally across the palm of your hand and squeeze them together to exercise the hand and grip as shown in photo 3A, or try the vertical variant shown in photo 3B.

4. Again holding two corks in the palm of your hand, roll one cork over the other to increase manual dexterity, pushing with the thumb as shown in photos 4A and 4B. Reverse direction every ten seconds or so.