Why can't I move my middle finger independently without moving my ring or index finger?

Question

Why can't I move my middle finger independently without moving my ring or index finger?

Answer 1

all of the bones in the hand eventually join each other

the thumb is independent [why u can move it along]

espeically the pinky and ring finger, they join closer to the finger, and they share a tendon, so it is harder to move them individually.

Answer 2

The muscles are connected.

Answer 3

Place your fingertips on the table. Now, raise the middle finger. I bet you could do it.

Answer 4

They are capable of moving independently, it's just that 99% of the time you move them together, so your brain just wires itself to move all the muscles there together.  It's simpler for your brain to process than telling each and every little muscle to move.  If you have a reason to move just one and you do it a lot, your brain will realize it needs to do them independently and rewire itself.

I play guitar and my fretting hand has a lot more freedom than my pick hand, because I'm used to having to use each finger to do specific things rather than all of them together to just grab.

Answer 5

because of the muscles and nerves in your finger

Answer 6

there is a bone connecting the middle and ring finger but the index bone isnt connected until the wrist im pretty sure

Answer 7

You can.  It may take lots of practice but everybody  can.

Have you a good reason to do it?

Answer 8

Cause god is telling you not to flip people off lol

Answer 9

Actually, the real answer is because your muscles fuse into one band of muscles further up the arm.

The fingers flex from muscle bands that contract, but they actually connect to your fingertips with tendons, and these tendons actually start before your wrist, so that only the tendons and very small amounts of muscles pass through the retinaculum and carpel tunnel in the wrist.

As you go further up towards the elbow, you will find that the muscle bands will fuse together since there isn't enough space for them to exist in separate bands.  The nervous innervation is separate because you can flex them separately, however, since the bands of muscles are fused, flexing one of them partially flexes the other.

There are 6 muscles that flex the fingers.

But only two of them specifically flex the 4 fingers, and one of them flexes the thumb.  The last three actually assist in flexing the whole hand and not fingers.

Flexor digitorum profundus and flexor digitorum superficialis.