I particularly enjoying working out mallet permutations using my pinkies and thumbs. Right now I'm adapting the triplet flam grid to mallets for a fun triple-lateral exercise.

I usually just use my hands/fingers and drum on a desk. Although once during English class, unfortunately while we were taking a test, I started thinking about the show and it was getting to an intense part and I just started doing drumspeak obnoxiously loud. Everybody stopped working and looked at me confused as all heck. Our teacher was a drummer so he knew what was going on and started laughing. It was awesome. But I don't recommend anyone ever do that. lol

Here is something i like to do:
1. Hold 1 drumstick straight out in front of you with both hands knuckles up.
2. Extend all of your fingers on your right hand while your left hand is holding the stick.
3. Close your fingers around the stick again
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for 8 counts, then switch hands and do the same thing.
5. Feel the burn!

Try this, it was recommended to me by a clinician a while back.

i just drum on my chest with my hands.

i get yelled at just about 8 or 9 times a day for druming on my desk with my hands

I drum in all my classes and at any given time Im usually lugging around a vater drum pad 2 pairs of scott johnsons (All my buddys never have sticks) a pair of SD1s if i need to do some orchestral playing and a pair of Extreme 5Bs for drumset. But anyway i am constantly drumming with my hands to perfect some rythems that are hard to grasp like recently at the end of our school fight song there is two bars that consist of 2 eighth notes and 4sixteenth notes with flams (It was rather challenging but a solid day of practice and i got it down) but i find that drumming with your hands for the stuff that you can and working things out in your head and saying the counts helps

funny thing about mental rehearsal:

your brain doesn't recognize the difference between playing your instrument, and thinking about playing your instrument. The same neurons in your head fire when you're playing, or thinking about playing. Of course, this won't help muscle development much, but you might be able to nail some of those ridiculous rhythms in your show if you go through it in your head as if you were playing.

^^^that is an interesting concept. and it has worked for me in the past. B/c my philosophy is that you won't be able to play something that you don't fully understand.

I used to drum all the time on everything with pencils, pens, my hands, and sticks. I was really obnoxious, and my brother hated it. But i think that the better you get at your instrument the more discreet (i.e. quiet) you can make you drumming on tables and such. So nobody really notices when i drum on tables or my knee anymore. Often i will just drum with my feet, and no one notices that.

P.S. I utterly hate it when drummers whip out sticks from their bag (not scojo practice sticks) and start hacking on a loud surface like a desk, tile floor, or wall. That annoys me so bad. And it annoys others even worse. It's loud and obnoxious.

Yea, my friend said the same thing. Apparently thinking about practicing is as good as practicing. He also said that you don't learn bad habits by thinking.

Of course, I'd assume that this would require some major analysis on the players part >.<, but it never hurt I suppose.

I like to drum on anything I can: desks, my thighs, the steering wheel, etc. I always have a Gripmaster handy and pump out the reps with that too.

Watching a Vic Firth instructional video also gave me the idea of slapping the fingers against the palm, but I have a question about that if anyone can address it. Should you slap all the fingers or just certain ones for developing certain grips? As in only the middle three fingers on the left hand, or the last three fingers on the right. I've heard both ways, and while I'm sure neither hurts, I'm just wondering if one way is more beneficial than the other.