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People working physically or doing arm-intensive sports have thicker fingers, but what actually makes them thick?

From what I know muscles moving fingers are located in the forearm, so training involving grip strength should affect forearm thickness, but not fingers.

As a runner and office worker I have very thin fingers, which are getting numb quite fast on cold. I'd wonder if making them thicker would help, but if there are no muscles, I don't quite see if it would work.

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    You may be able to increase tendon/ligament size a bit, but that's a slower process than increasing muscle mass. Increased circulation may help some. Or mittens. Commented Jan 26, 2022 at 12:27
  • here I can tell you why your finger becomes thicker; Your finger becomes thicker with age because the joints of your finger lose bone and cartilage slightly and it can become the cause of finger thickness.
    – Neil6419
    Commented Feb 17, 2022 at 9:45

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Your finger is made up of ligaments. tendons, 3 bones, fat, skin, veins and capillaries. Anatomy of finger

As you get older your knuckles or bones will get bigger just through use and damage.

Tendons and ligaments get stronger through use by adding more collagen strands to the existing ones.

Your skin surrounds the fat around your fingers and those fat deposits grow.

Skin can thicken through use and vitamins but I'm not sure if its noticeable.

Your veins and arteries can also grow through diet and damage (when an artery is blocked blood vessels can grow around the blockage).

The two main ways you could increase your finger size is working them to increase veins arteries and tendons or putting on more fat to get better insulation, or just wear gloves when they get cold.

Making them thicker or increasing your circulation would probably help with your hands getting cold but it is common for some people who just naturally have poorer circulation in their hands.

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