The Secrets to Resolving Hand Numbness
Numb pinky and ring finger? Test the 5 places the nerve gets pinched, and start with the right one
A step-by-step guide that walks you through the same five theories Dr. Gonzales tests in clinic, in the order he tests them. Run each first aid, watch what changes your symptoms, and follow the plan matched to what worked.

Who this is for
Does this sound like you?
- You wake up in the middle of the night and can't feel your pinky or ring finger.
- The numbness comes and goes: some days fine, some days pins, aches, or real pain.
- A doctor has already floated the "s" word, surgery, and you'd like to try a non-surgical approach first.
- You've been told it's cubital tunnel, or decided it was, and nobody tested the neck or shoulder.
- Rest, ice, stretching, and a fistful of Advil haven't changed anything.
Get examined first if your hand is getting weaker, you are dropping things, or the numbness is constant rather than on and off. The guide opens with an emergency screen for exactly that, and later says constant symptoms are a huge issue and mean you need to be under medical care now.
The problem
Hand numbness isn't one problem
The ulnar nerve can be pressured at five common points: a cervical disc in the neck, the back elements of the spine, an unstable shoulder, or tunnels below the elbow and at the wrist. An exercise that helps a neck-driven case may do nothing for a wrist-driven one, or make it worse.
How the guide works
Test each theory.
Run the first aid for each of the five theories and watch how your symptoms respond. A change of 30% or more on the movement that normally bothers you counts.
Narrow to one working theory.
The What Now? questions sort your results. You are not diagnosing yourself; you are finding the first aid that changes your symptoms.
Follow the plan matched to it.
About a week of first aid if the right theory was picked, then the stabilization exercise that pairs with it, then the game plan.
Symptoms that come and go
Ups and downs are the good news
As the guide puts it: "Having ups and downs tells me there is hope. Constant symptoms are a huge issue." If that is you, you need to be under medical care now. Any fix that never asks why the nerve is irritated is a band-aid.
What's inside
Five theories, one game plan, 20 videos
A sections-based written guide
Start Here, the five theories, What Now?, After Week 1, the three-part game plan, a beginner's program, and a bonus protocol
20 short videos
7 first-aid test videos, 12 exercise demos, and a 7-minute nerve-flossing lesson, about 40 minutes in all
Five first aids to test
Chin tucks, armpit sniffers (or the time out frog position), the anti-shrug, elbow skin rolling, and the gecko hand, each with a 30% test
About a week of first aid
Then the matched stabilization exercise, a three-week beginner's program, and a two-week bonus protocol
Week 1
Test the five theories
- Theory 1 and 2, the neck: a cervical disc pressuring the nerve root, often worse looking down, or the back elements of the spine, often worse looking up, tested with chin tucks, armpit sniffers, or the time out frog position
- Theory 3, the shoulder: a nerve bundle pressured at the head of the shoulder, tested with the anti-shrug
- Theory 4 and 5, below the elbow and at the wrist: elbow skin rolling and the gecko hand
After week 1
Stabilize what worked
- A stabilization exercise matched to your theory: kettlebell kneeling halos, high bears, the serratus prayer, the lobster claw plate carry, farmer's carries
- Cooling things down comes first, around a week if the right theory was picked, longer for severe cases
The game plan
Three parts, in order
- 1. Modify the triggers: sleeping position, sitting, getting into a car and driving
- 2. Learn to desensitize flare-ups yourself, including the foundational ulnar nerve slides, which should not feel stretchy: if you feel stretchy or you feel symptoms, this is not for you
- 3. Active care, the conditioning work where the real resolution happens
Beginner's program and bonus
Start conditioning
- A three-week starter: daily desensitizing, then green-light strength exercises: split squat, half-kneeling press and pull, plank progressions, single-leg hinge
- Bonus, the most common ulnar program: a two-week neck-first protocol of chin tucks, sniffers, midback extension, and shoulder hinge, then high bears to keep the mobility you gained. It also applies when the elbow is the primary compression site
How it works
How it works
Run the five first aids.
Each theory has a video-guided test. Note which one changes your symptoms by 30% or more.
Cool it down for about a week.
Run that first aid through the day, longer for severe cases, then add the stabilization exercise matched to it.
Work the three-part game plan.
Modify triggers, desensitize flare-ups, build strength, so you are working on the cause, not just the sensation.
Bring it to your doctor.
The guide is written so you can ask better questions, not so you can skip the exam.
Take that information, absorb it, and go to your healthcare provider and talk about your problem.
Why Performance Place
Dr. Sebastian Gonzales, DC is a sports chiropractor who has spent years helping hardworking people decrease hand numbness, and has had it himself. Of the anti-shrug he says, "this is not the only one, but it works for some people. It worked for me in my condition." The guide was written to teach young clinicians clinical reasoning, then adapted so a person with debilitating numbness can follow along from home.
Reviews
- Verified ownerDavid SchneiderMay 5, 2024
The guide is truly phenomenal. I've been searching for answers for the last 5 years, and haven't been able to fix my nerve issues. I believe God led me here, and I'm very impressed. Sebastian is true to his word, this guide includes exercises that I've never seen anywhere else. That's saying something, because I've looked through A LOT of information on this. I've already made solid progress and am loving the relief I get from the exercise for my specific location of compression. These guys rock! The book is clear and well worth the money!
- Verified ownerJohn MuenchOctober 10, 2023
Overall the ebook seems to cover enough of each subject, but I haven't spent a lot of time with it during the past month. I have hand numbness, sometimes severe pain, usually during the night, and numbness during the day, not necessarily all day or every day. I'm still learning to use Theory 3 for relief from most of the numbness that comes with typing on a computer keyboard, like right now. And sometimes when driving. I went to a chiropractic health center at Logan University, and stopped after the 5th intern left for extended training. I never got as much variety at the school as I have gotten from this ebook. I wish I could print it out as working with it on a 13" screen is difficult. But otherwise, I think the cost of it is worthy of the theory contained in it. I just need more time to work with it.
- Verified ownerPeter SwanOctober 6, 2023
I really like the information. I haven't done the exercises enough times to determine which ones have benefit yet, ( I am returning from a trip to Italy so I am still in airports)
- Verified ownerGraham CollinsOctober 8, 2021
I have had ulnar nerve trouble in the left arm and hand this past year. Finally, this was diagnosed as originating from the cervical spine area and I had a nerve block procedure last month. However, I still suffered from pain and numbness into the left arm, ring and small finger. Post the nerve block procedure, I struggled to get the right advice from my PT/chiro and acupuncturist. I purchased your guide earlier this week, undertook the first phase of exercises/stretches and already feel so much better and after a number of weeks am now fine. I really cannot believe the difference, I will keep these up and move onto the next phase of strengthening exercises.
- Verified ownerThien NguyenAugust 12, 2021
I went to a family doctor but all she told me was not to do what I describe to her but with no corrective exercises. I have the number 3. I feel better immediately after doing it for 2 hours of buying this product. I will updates on my remedy 1 month from now.
- Verified ownerGary Guianen JrNovember 26, 2020
I've been experiencing pinky and ring finger numbness for quite some time now. It started with my shoulder hurting real bad. Shortly thereafter,the numbness came. I had hand and finger coordination problems. I even had alot of muscle wasting in the web part between my pointer and thumb. It's actually pretty caved in there. Since I am a veteran,I reached out to the VA hospital system and 6 months later,the same problem,not much better at all. Then I came across this guide and I finally felt there was some hope to get my hand back! I'm in my first week on the exercises. I've got to say that so far,it feels as if my hand is becoming freer to use. I've done research and I found that this condition is like having an extremely tight glove on. I'm beginning to feel as if it's a less tighter glove on now than before. I'm going to continue to do the exercises and hopefully the progress continues. My gratitude to Doctor Gonzales for giving us hope to have faith in something that actually works!
- Verified ownerNitesh GoelAugust 6, 2020
I think this guide may be the reason I don't need to get a surgery for my ulnar nerve compression. I had been dealing with pinky finger pain and numbness for weeks. I sought a lot of professional help, including seeing doctors at some well known hospitals. But their prescription of resting, icing, stretching, and a fistful of Advils did little to reduce my pain. Literally the first two movements in the guide brought me relief. It was pretty shocking for me just how well they understood what I was going through. I have been following the guidelines for a few weeks. I'm making tremendous progress towards recovery. The guide's well written and easy to follow. Sebastian and Dawne have a talent for explaining exercises using cues from everyday movements we do anyway. It makes it easy to do them right without supervision. The instructions are also funny sometimes, which I enjoyed. Though, I would like to talk to Sebastian at some point about his vocal disdain for the metric system.
- Verified ownerMike ChavezJuly 28, 2020
I am grateful for this book and look forward to getting better. Mike C.
- Verified ownerAmanda LatonaJune 5, 2020
Thank you for creating this content for hand numbness. I purchased it 5 months postpartum. I started to feel numbness in the ring and pinky finger, but a lot of things were also aching in my upper body. I was really interested in elbow pain, but came across this guide. I did a few of the exercises and within a week, I didn’t feel the pain come back. It would come and go, but now it’s gone. I am now almost 1yr postpartum and I haven’t experienced any numbness. When I did have my finger numbness it would radiate to the ulnar side of my elbow would be in great pain and it would be difficult to grip. I sometimes get soreness in that area, but not to the level of what it was a few months ago. Still to this day I am not sure what triggered it, but I am glad I was able to feel better.
- Verified ownerKatherine PfefferApril 15, 2020
I thank you for creating and making this information available! I was under a local Chiropractor's care and his treatments and exercises were very helpful to me. In addition I wanted more knowledge to continue correcting and strengthening my arms and hands after the initial injury that resulted in my hand numbness. I found Performance Place through an internet search and have been very pleased with the information and exercises that Dr. Gonzales includes in this guide.
- Verified ownerLevi ADecember 1, 2019
Just wanted to thank you for putting out this resource as well as your youtube videos. In short, I am a classical pianist and also work a desk job, and became very frightened when I began having numbness in 4th and 5th fingers of right hand. I've since visited regular Chiropractor and determined a lot of the issues stem from the neck. Treatment is ongoing but much better now and after 3 weeks I am able to play without issue once more. It means a lot that I was able to find your ebook and allay fears about severity of issue I was having. Thanks again!
- Verified ownerAlecNovember 27, 2019
Amazing product!! I first couldn't believe how efficient the exercises in this product are. In one package deal, I learned about the essence of my issue, learned how to mitigate my symptoms and how to reduce the likelyhood that they reocure altogether. The content is delivered in a way so that I was easy for me to understand the information, that would have otherwise been to complex for me. I strongly encourage people to give this product a shot for I believe it has a great potential to help people dealing with hand numbness, as I used to. That's pretty much it, I don't know of anything similar. To me, it is a no-brainer!
What you get
What you get
- The complete written guide: five testable theories, the What Now? sort, the three-part game plan, and the beginner's program
- 20 short videos for the first-aid tests, the stabilization exercises, nerve flossing, and the bonus protocol
- Household equipment only: a kettlebell, plate, or hardcover book, a light band, a chair or wall
- Mobile friendly: read the guide and watch every video from your phone or tablet
Self-help resource. Not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for seeing a doctor.
FAQ
Questions people ask before they start
- How do I know this fits my case?
- It's built for ulnar nerve symptoms that come and go: numbness in the pinky and ring fingers, waking up with a dead hand, intermittent pain. You test all five theories and let your own symptom response point to the one to work on. If your hand is getting weaker or the numbness is constant, get examined first.
- How is this different from free YouTube exercises?
- Most of these exercises are on YouTube. The problem is order and matching. Some ulnar nerve stretches, in Dr. Gonzales's words, can make symptoms worse, and they're only implemented in certain types of scenarios. The guide tells you which test to run first, what a real change looks like, and which stabilization exercise pairs with which theory.
- Will this help me avoid surgery?
- No honest answer promises that. The guide exists for people who want to try a non-surgical approach first. Dr. Gonzales has seen hard cases that required surgery and others that felt over 50% improvement in a few days; every person is different.
- How long until I notice something?
- It varies. Some people have felt over 50% improvement in a few days; others take longer. Expect roughly a week of first aid, if the right theory was picked, before stabilization work.
- Does it give me sets and reps?
- For the first aids and the bonus protocol, yes. For the beginner's strength exercises, weight, sets, and reps are left to your tolerance and your clinician. The guide is upfront that it hasn't examined you.
- Should I still see a doctor?
- Yes. The guide says you definitely should see a sports chiropractor near you regardless, and Dr. Gonzales says on camera: "If you don't get diagnosed correctly then you will not get better and you will probably get a lot worse. It's worth the time and money, I promise."
Stop guessing at stretches. Test the five theories.
Find the first aid that changes your symptoms, follow the plan matched to it, and bring a better set of questions to your doctor.
