warriors

Damn i didnt even know i still had this saved on my computer lol.

Grip training is, in my opinion, one of the most rewarding kinds of training and lifting that there is. Why? Well, I think one so easily sees the results of grip training because of a few reasons:

Many people do not have much of a gripping component in their regular training besides holding onto the barbell during different kinds of deadlifts and rows, and this is a 'poor' grip workout at best. If you think holding a 1" barbell is a good grip exercise, you will be pleasantly surprised when you start training real grip exercises. Thus, when someone does start some real grip work, the base level of strength is usually not great, and gains will come fast in the form of noticably increasing grip strength.

As I just said above, few people train the grip. So, when you have been a serious grip trainer for a while, there will be no dispute as to whether you have strong hands or not. If you have a freind who thinks he is strong, hand him your no. 2 gripper and ask him to close it (fully) 10 times for you. Load up your thick-handled barbell to 300 pounds and ask him to pick it up with a double-overhand grip. See, to my knowledge, there is no magical 8-ply supersuit or quadruple-gold line red ninja wrap that can give a guy an artificial advantage in grip strength and close the gap to your naturally-built talents, as so often can happen in powerlifting.

Hopefully, you have been persuaded to train your grip. Right off the bat, I am going to separate the types of grip training you should do into two categories, and the comments on the first one will be short and sweet.

Training for a strongman or grip contest--If you are going to be in a strongman contest or a grip contest, PLEASE do specific training. About 6 months back I won the thick bar deadlift event at a strongman contest, and this prompted a lot of peole to come up and ask me about it, and for me to get a feel for what kind of grip training people do. Many people were telling me they did power holds with a heavy barbell in a rack or hung from a chinning bar in the gym as their grip work. One guy went so far as to say to me "What was your secret? Did you use a whole lot of chalk?" NO! My secret was about 20 workouts that included THICK BAR DEADLIFTS before the meet! So please, if you are going to be in a strongman contest or a farmer's walk contest because 'you are strong', do the gripping events or the farmer's walk for a couple of months to both get the feel and to work your grip before the contest. After all, if you were going to be in a push/pull meet, you wouldn't just do pull-ups and dips to train your deadlift and bench, would you? I hope not. 'Nuff said.

Grip training in general--The instruction that will follow is for this general form of grip training. This is what you are doing when you simply want to build an all-around strong grip, or are rehabbing if you did something stupid like broke your wrist/hand/arm playing softball. You will try to hit what I see as the two important aspects of grip strength thoroughly--the fingers, and the thumb.

Yes, I know that the above looks like a pretty oversimplified analysis of what grip strength is; after all, who can't look at the hand and see it is composed of fingers and a thumb? Well, to me all of the different 'grip classifications' have missed the boat. For instance, Ironmind puts out a lot of great grip products (my favorites, in fact) and classifies your grip into such categories as crushing, pinch, and supporting. They say that simply training your crushing grip is not going to carry over into a very strong pinch grip, or whatever. My question is, why? If you look at the movements, a crushing grip really doesn't involve the thumb at all, whereas on a pinch grip the thumb is required to apply all of force on one of the sides of the object being pinched, and that is quite a difference. Therefore, I like to simply make sure that you are training the fingers and the thumb in every workout, so that you can excel in all different aspects of grip training without worrying too terribly much about what 'training style' you are working in.

NOTE: As I stated above, I do think that to a degree grip training is pretty specific. So, if you spend all of your time tearing cards, you will be pretty good at that and able to impress your friends, but don't go grabbing a 60-penny nail to bend for them just because you have gotten pretty good at card-tearing. The preceding section where I said not to worry too much about what 'kind' of grip training you are doing and just training the whole hand is somewhat of a pathetic grip-version of the conjugate method Louie Simmons employs, and not a license to neglect anything.

Anyway, I have come across some preferred methods of grip training that I think can help out anyone, and will ultimately lead to a he-man grip. There are 4 grip exercises that I would say you MUST do if you want to realize your potential and get the most from your grip training. They are:

Using the Captains of Crush grippers, or some other crushing grip method.

Doing thick-handled barbell work, specifically thick bar deadlifts with a double-overhand grip and/or one-handed deadlifts with the thick bar.

Pinch grips.

Wrist-rolling.



Grippers

The Captains of Crush grippers are fairly self-explanatory equipment-wise. I guess if you do not know what they are, look at the Ironmind website. You can order them through the mail from Ironmind, or you can speed up the process by ordering them from Crain's Muscle World with a credit card. GoHeavy.Com should have a link to both of these sites. Anyway, also buy one of those little sand or gel filled stress balls and a cheesy Wal-Mart gripper to warm up with. Do a couple of light sets first with the stress ball and then with the gripper to make sure your hands are all warmed up. Now, use your Ironmind grippers. I suggest starting with the no. 1. Even if you can't close it at first, you should be able to work up to closing it pretty quickly. I like to do 2-4 total work sets with each hand on the grippers. If you only have the number one, do as many reps with each hand as you can for a couple of sets. CLOSE THE GRIPPER FULLY ON EACH REP! It is more important to work on actually closing the gripper(handles touching) as opposed to doing a bunch or reps where it comes to within a quarter inch of closing. That quarter inch is the hardest part and is the range that will make you stronger. Anyway, after a couple of sets, do one last set of as many reps as possible, and then hold it closed as long as you can on the last rep with each hand. Strive to hold it closed longer each workout on that last set and your grip strength will take off. I also like to try to close the next gripper up as far as I can and hold it a few times. As an example, the last Captains of Crush workout I did looked like this:

Warm up, No. 1 gripper X 12 reps, No. 2 gripper X 8 and 7 reps, No. 3 gripper closed as far as possible and held for as long as possible, Drop Set--No. 3 closed and held, No. 2 closed 5 times and held, No. 1 closed 6 times and held.

This is it for my gripper workout. After I am done with this I will do a couple of very easy sets using the sand-filled stress ball to almost try and massage that 'cramped' feeling out of my hand and fingers. Usually I will go to Pinch Grips right after working the grippers...



Pinch Grips

For the Pinch Grip, you have a few options. One is to buy the pinch grip block from Ironmind. This is a convenient way to work the pinch grip, because you can load up whatever weight you want on the loading pin and easily work the lift with one hand or two. You can also make a pinch grip block out of a 2"x4" or some stock steel and attach a chain or rope to it to hold the weight, but this is a hassle. The other option is simply to do it the old fashioned way and use plates. This is what I usually do, mainly because I am training for a grip contest that includes the pinch grip in this fashion. What I do is take two 45 lb. plates and stand them upright together, with the smooth sides facing out. I then put one of my olympic dumbbell handles through the center holes, and put whatever extra weight I want on the dumbbell end sticking out of the plates and then attach a collar to that end. I then face the protruding end of the dumbbell handle away from me, squat down a little bit to grab the plates, pinch hard, and lift. Remember to chalk up so that neither your hands nor the plates have any moisture or sweat on them, as that will definitely ruin your lift. You can either do these as singles, working up to the heaviest weight you can pick up off of the ground in this fashion, or to hold the weight for time. I usually work up to the heaviest weight I can pick up that day, and then either do a couple of sets holding that weight or back off a little bit to do holds for time.



Thick Bar Training

Thick bar training, simply put, is an awesome way to develop your grip. If you work hard on the thick bar deadlift for a while, holding your regular deadlifts should never be a problem again, and you might, in fact, not even have to use an over-under grip on training sets of the deadlift. No matter what, this is a brutal way to train and you will definitely be rewarded by way of incredible grip and forearm strength.

The hardest aspect of thick bar training can be, for many people, obtaining a thick bar. I personally would not be willing to pay the price of the commercial versions. The Apollon's Axle, from Ironmind, will run you about $170 including shipping. This is not too bad, but you can probably make your own that is as high quality as this one for $70. If you want to spend the money, I believe that Hammer Strength makes thick-handled barbells that have revolving ends like a regular bar. This would be a nice feature, but it is not necessary. What I did, and what you can do, is make your own by obtaining a piece of stock steel that is 6 or 7 feet long and 2 inches in diameter. You can call around to machine shops or steel supply places and see if they have any scrap or pieces already cut to this length. If you have to pay for an entire 12-foot length of new steel, you will probably have to pay $60. Like I said, hopefully you will be able to find a pre-cut piece that might be 'scrap' for half that. Anyway, after you have this 6 or 7 foot piece of steel, buy a pair of those cheap chromed collars that have the bolts that screw in at an angle on them. Hopefully these will only cost you about $9. Look around, and you might possibly find some at a used sporting goods store. Take the bolts out of the collars, and take the collars and the bar to a machine shop or welding place somewhere. Have them weld the collars onto the bar a foot in from each end. You might want to call around first to see how much you will be charged; some places a have a minimum charge for labor, but I got mine done for $14. After you have the collars welded onto the bar, take some emery cloth to the whole thing and clean it off so that there is no rust. Tape off the ends with newspaper and prime and paint the inner section of the bar and the collars. You now have a thick bar that will outlast you. As an aside, you might find that you need to take some coarse, and then fine, emery cloth to the end of the bar for a while on some afternoon to make sure that all plates will easily slide onto the bar. A light coat of silicone spray or other such agent after you have done this will help prevent rusting. Any time there is some rust on the bar ends, however, just take your emery cloth and sand it off. You can make a slightly cheaper bar out of pipe or PVC, but I would recommend taking the extra time and little bit of money to get a really good bar.

Now, simply train whatever movement you like with the bar. I like to use it on benches, overhead presses, and deadlifts. Curls done with the thick bar are brutal, but you have to be careful as you can really start feeling this movement in the elbow and bring about the onset of some tendinitis. The main movement to concentrate on here is the thick bar deadlift with a double overhand grip, or the one-handed thick bar deadlift. The one-handed version not only works the grip but really strengthens the upper back as well. Either way, I do these after my regular deads and RDLs. These are best done for 1-3 rep sets, and like I said, you will see your grip strength soar after you add a few sets of these.



Wrist Rolling

Everyone remembers the wrist roller that sat around in their high school weight room. You know, the piece of broom handle that had the really long shoelace tied to it with a 5 pound weight at the other end? Well, we are going to build you a man-sized wrist roller that will hold a lot more that 5 pounds. I had seen this done before, but if you want another set of print instructions on this subject or just want to read an article, the July 1996 edition of MILO (vol. 4, no. 2) contains an article on making this kind of wrist roller on page 38.

Anyway, to make this wrist roller, first buy a piece of hollow steel pipe between 5 and 6 feet long that has on outside diameter of anywhere from 1 and 1/2 to 2 and 1/2 inches, depending upon how ambitious you are. I would go with 1 and 1/2. If you really want a strong wrist roller you can get a smaller piece of pipe that will just fit inside of this one to reinforce it, but this is probably not necessary unless you are Dr. No and you are going to be rolling up 400 pounds with your bionic hand. After you have selected whatever piece of pipe you want to use, go back to that friendly machinist and have him drill a hole straight through the pipe (or both layers of pipe) that is just large enough to accomodate a pretty large eye-bolt you will need to buy with the pipe. Put the eye-bolt through the pipe/s and attach a strong piece of rope, which you also will have needed to buy with the pipe, to the eye. The next piece is something that you might as well buy. Get the Olympic-sized loading pin from Ironmind and attach it to the rope. You can now put the wrist roller up high in your rack, stand on a bench, and roll whatever weight you want from the ground to a good 6 feet high. Be sure to do some sets rolling the bar using both wrist flexion and extension, and you might want to put some athletic tape near the center of the bar so that your hands don't slip too much while you are trying to do your rolling. If your hands are too tired to slowly roll the weight back down after you have gotten them to the top, move your hands outside of the tape onto the bare pipe and hold on just enough to let the pipe turn through your hands at a controlled speed and keep the weights from crashing to the floor.



In summary, those are the exercises and implements that I have found best contributed to my hand, forearm, and grip strength, and I have tried it all. A lot of the other contraptions out there are not worth the money you would pay for them, because they just don't give the results. The Eagle Loops, for instance, I like to use to do the finger lifts. Other than that, however, when I use them for chins or rows or whatnot, I find that it only really makes my fingers hurt and is not conducive to a great grip workout OR a great back exercise.

Now that you are started on the road to serious grip training I wish you good luck, and pretty soon you will be everyone's favorite guy to hand a stubborn jar to...

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toughnuts

A good read!

Sholiz

Great post!

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If you are at all interested in grip training, I strongly urge you to sign up at www.gripboard.com .

The strongest hands in the world are signed up there. It is a great forum, the greatest, for gripping. No question. Most of the COC's post there (literally most of all of them).

Sholiz, hope you don't take any offence to the link. It's a great site, really .

powerman2000

Grip training = Not using straps, ever!

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This might cause your body to lag in training though, if your grip is very week already. Specific work is always the best solution.

I must state though, not using straps will only help your support grip. You might think they must all carry over a lot since they are all in the hands but suprisingly, from my experience and others, this is just not true. I know people who have only training crush (grippers), and have come pretty far, but can't deadlift 300 lbs. due to grip issues.

A well balanced grip plan is a good idea. But, if one has a specific goal (such a crush), one should cancel out the others as they will slow down ones gains in crush. This is KTA philosophy. They will slow it down because hands are very fast recovering bodyparts. To excel in a field of hand strength one should train nearly daily, and if one mixes his crush training (goal) with support training, one will over fatigue his hands and minimize his crush work.

It's a complicated matter. My advice: for overall grip strength, work on everything. For specific goals: stick with your field and work hard on it. Remmember, hands recover much quicker than one would expect. I go on 10+ week cycles of daily training with only 1 day a week free, and then take a week off the end. This allows me to recover while getting my gains at the maximum. Of course, I am using the KTA program (and training crush), which calls for this.

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Brinn

Amen

Actually, the only specific grip training I've ever really done is static holds. I've read that grip training with the grippers don't carry over well to things like deads. Myth?

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LatsMakeTheMan

Good post bro. I just got my COC #1 about 2 weeks ago, and after training every other day, I'm almost able to close it now.

(I previously thought I had a strong grip......what a wakeup call this thing has been.)

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Happened to all of us man . I ordered the CoC's expecting to close AT LEAST the one on the first try. I couldn't even close the trainer.

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