by Daniel Evans
Introduction Whilst grip training is a generally a specialist area I’ve included this information to enable everyone to eliminate all possibility of strength bottleneck in the future. The sooner a trainee understands the fuction of grip and begins to work with it the better. They are too many people who ignore the grip and end up having to use foreign equipment to help them hold onto the bar. With any luck we can nip this in the bud before it even has a chance to manifest.
The majority of people seem to seek forearm hypertrophy purely for aesthetic value as opposed to recognising the true benefit it brings; namely immeasurable benefit in carryover to the main lifts.
It's often overlooked that the ligaments of the forearm are directly connected to the hand. Grip and forearm tie hand in hand (no pun intended) Forearm hypertrophy is dictated by the regular functions of the hand and every compound lift is greatly depedant upon the forearms. The typical person tends to overlook this factor, reaching for standard bar reverse curls in order to achive hypertrophy in this area. Few people seem to realise that the reverse curl is one of many exercises that targets the forearms. This is the common mistake. The most obvious and most effective way to go about achieving sizable forearms is to adopt a routine which incorporates working
the hands.
If you are training for hand / grip strength it's also important to note that despite the fact that the fingers are connected to the forearms working the forearms
will not result in greater hand strength. Forearm hypertrophy and strength is a bi-product of working the fingers since the fingers represent the beginning of the chain. It does not work vise versa.
Working the Hands “Working the hands” doesn’t mean knocking out a few reps on a cheap gripper your aunty bought you when you were 6 year old, nor does it mean doing some other alternative lunatic movement with a bar.
Let me refer back to shocking the body; Bearing the hand and forearm connection in mind, think of the everyday objects your hand hold and grips. Most of us grip a can of soda or a cup of tea lightly and the training folk grip a bar with a girth of about an inch. Your body has adjusted to the frequent activities. Essentially it has “evolved” to cope with the “stresses” you place upon it.
Before I state the methods to improve grip and forearm hypertrophy, think for yourself as to how you may go about in shocking the body into forearm growth. I wish to demonstrate how blatantly obvious most training principles are, by using this is an example.
Methods of Forced Evolution The answer is simple. You don’t go about doing the same movements with a slightly modified grip or angle, nor you use a different piece of machinery with silly shaped handles and cables. You should force your body to grip the most manually incompatible object your hand has ever held, day after day after day, until it adjusts to the stresses place upon it, essentially evolving to the pressures of your daily activities. The goal is to fool the body into thinking that the activity is “everyday living”.
So far you body does great gripping that soda can, but lets increase the size of that soda can doubling or even doubling or even tripling its girth. Do you think that the average person would be casually sip on the can with one hand? Unlikely. It’s something the body as not adapted to do. A hypothetical every day activity could become a shock to the body without any reasonable resistance involved.
Let us apply these principles to the gym environment and discuss the methods which we can perform in order to shock the body into making our grip improve and our forearms grow.
The average training persons body has become accustomed to holding the same object. This is inclusive of the 1 inch bar that you are likely t hold during a typical session in the gym. Your body has built the muscle in the hands and forearm to cope with these minor stresses. It’s done its job here and there’s no more to do. Though your grip potential will adjust gradually as progressional weight is introduced, it’s best to get well ahead of the game to avoid potential grip related platues in the future.
We do this by introducing a what I call I “manually incompatible object”; an object which takes sheer effort and pain to hold; an object where every muscle in the hand including your pinky) is forced into play as you grip the most awkward object you hand has ever held. Sure you’ve lifted awkward object in the past and probably will do so in the future, but doing this religiously in every session is another matter completely. The objects of choice should be something that force a wide grip, leaving you wish only the ends of your fingers to hold the object in a “claw” like manner. i.e a "pinch grip".
By regular practice of this, you are essentially telling your body that you have to lift this awkward object every training day. Your bodys only possible response is to grow in relation to the stresses hat are placed upon it. This includes forearm hypertrophy and a killer grip which has positive carryover to the main lifts. Your grip will now laugh at your back whilst performing deadlifts, not visa-versa.
The object of choice may be a “heavy” object that you can just manage to grip and clean from the floor, repeating the process or a relatively light weight which can be held statically for a long duration. i.e. 3 sets of 1 minute static holds.
There are a wide range of everyday objects that can be used. A favourite of mine is the “whey tub blob” which is essentially a 5lb whey tub currently filled with water weighing 10kg, allowing for 3x1 minute static holds after a good compound session. Sand can be added instead of water for extra weight.
The main crushing movement is best worked by heavy duty grippers. Captains of Crush and Heavy Grips are two popular brands which should be considered. These can be bought on the Internet via the following websites:
http://ironmind.com
http://www.heavygrips.com
Working the Antagonist It’s very important to work the opposing muscle in any resistance training situation. The hand in this case is no exception. In order to keep your hands healthy you must work your hands in the opposite direction of a typical grip, with resistance. This can be achieved by wrapping a series of bands or one thick band around a clenched first. The antagonist muscles are worked by extending the fingers straight against the resistance of the band.
Extensor bands intended for this very purpose can be bought from Ironmind.com also.
