There are a handful of excellent suggestions for hand and finger exercises spread across various forums. As having a regular habit of ensuring the health and nimblness of your hands and fingers is paramount to every form of magic it seemed best to localize a thread on the subject here.

I am not a medical professional, but I would like to share a successful experience I have had with a healthy technique in this area.

First, the quick background. Last year I sliced my left fourth finger badly and required stitches. The wound stretched lengthwise and crossed the two inner knuckles. While there will always be a scar there I was given a physical therapy course by a hand specialist and am able to use my little finger with no issue. I am a lifelong musician and, thanks to this therapy course, have no issues with my finger when playing a variety of instruments that require heavy dextrous use of that finger. In fact, this exercise has helped me in both music and magic.

The physical therapy consists of using medical exercise putty to perform various exercises designed not just for my injured finger, but for the general well being of both of my hands. I had expressed my concern as a musician to the doctor not just about my injured finger but because I was born with a more resilient (read: stiffer) musculature and he prescribed this as a lifelong course to remaining nimble.

I use the putty with the highest resistance (it is light green in color) that my doctor carries and will eventually have to purchase another ball of putty when this one wears out. It is not expensive and well worth it. It has been 9 months and it is still going strong.

I will see if I can find and provide the original documents detailing the exercises rather than type in descriptions here. They may be lost - so if I do not find them, if people post interest I will take the time to write them up. However, they are an easily obtainable standard list of putty exercises that you will probably find at most places that do hand physical therapy (no copyright issues here).

The general structure I follow is to go through all of the exercises once before I have my first practice session of the day. This serves to loosten my finger joints, hands, and arms (the muscles for the fingers are actually inside your arm and hand and not in the fingers) and relax my muscles in preparation for finer work. If necessary, later in the day, I might go through a selection of the exercises I find most useful under the circumstances. This is usually only if my hands get real stiff again or I have a lot of pain in one particular finger or area (e.g. ball of thumb) and it requires exercising/massaging.

This made a world of difference for me to do this prior to my morning sleight of hand exercises instead of waiting until whenever I was going to practice a musical instrument. I was messing around with some linking rings after a lot of basic pass drills and found my little finger was so worn out it was not able to clasp the ring correctly (it did it, but it did not look identical to the other hand). Doing the therapy course with the putty immediately provided relief and I was able to use the rings with no issue (skillfully is a different matter - but that is why I was practicing!).

I hope some of you find this information useful. Please reply if you want the specific course of exercises I was prescribed as I am sure the prescription for a lifelong nimbleness for a musician translates reasonably well to that of a magician.

As I define and establish a more set routine of practice I have leaned heavily on my past experience with musical pedagogy. There seems to be a lot of parallels between the two (and for any performing art for that matter [e.g. dance]) - but with music and magic the hands are such a crucial focal point that similar learning strategies have helped me progress quicker than I anticipated. A lifetime of learning how to wiggle and contort my fingers in a defined rhythmic fashion seem to translate well to sleight of hand. There are also a great many lessons on embouchure and posture that directly translate. It would surprise me if there were not some posts somewhere on this subject. I will conduct a search to see what I can learn and if there is anything meaningful to be contributed to that discussion. My local professional magic shop proprietor and I were discussing a similar subject last week. Namely, how a large proprotion of her customers are professionally trained musicians.

A few years back I was on a balcony that collapsed. As I fell two stories my right hand tangle in wrought iron railing and mangled my ring and pinky fingers.
After surfer and a cast I did a few sessions of PT. The putty is great. But one if best things I did was washing dishes. We didn't have dishwasher at the time and therapist said washing by hand is one if best things I could have done. The hot water, flexing fingers as I washed really helped keep things loose and aided in rehab.

I'm nearly 100% today though there's a slight twist in my pinky that's created a gap that makes is a bear to p@lm cards. And I do notice done stiffness when it gets cold.

Oof, that is rough to go through. The injury I sustained was actually done WHILE washing dishes. A plate broke and sliced me deep as described in the original post.

In addition to ongoing PT with the putty (extended to lifetime PT per my specific request for assistance with music and now magic), the doctor prescribed vitamin E oil. Initially this was to rub into the scar after the stitches were removed to keep the finger from permanently stiffening by reducing scar tissue. However, he explained that using it regularly on any joints that insist on staying stiff would be beneficial to softening and reknitting the skin to eventually become more flexible. I was cautioned not to expect miracles - but that over time it would slightly improve things.

There is an IU count (I forget what it stands for) on the bottles. The doctor explained that I should get the oil with the highest count possible (many vitamin E oils are not very pure). The stuff I used during the recovery had an IU of 45,000. The stuff I use a few times a week has an IU of 25,000 (the highest I could find at the pharmacy). The doctor told me not to use anything lower than 15,000. You or your signifcant other might already have some in your medicine cabinet or makeup kit.

The general application the doctor showed me was to take a small amount (a little goes a LONG way) and rub it into the wound or other troubled area. If there are any open wounds do not do this - wait for it to close up so you do not reopen and keep it open. The way you rub it is to press firmly - as hard as you can handle without pain, rubbing along the troubled area and a little beyond both horizontal and vertical. So in the case of a finger side, lengthwise from top to bottom and then crosswise around the semi-circle and back. Then to do the same thing but in a circular motion both clockwise and counterclockwise. It does leave a residue so wash your hands afterwards or you will wind up with oil on your cards or guitar strings or whatnot.

This method was great for not losing flexibility in my injured finger and over time I have noticed slight improvements in the fingers I apply it to regularly. If nothing else my skin is healthier!

I will add this advise to this thread also