I hate to say this. But I have hands like a girl. I’ll skip all the horror stories that come along with having such hands. Anyways, how on earth do I get thicker hands? Does such a development come through training forarms? If so, I’d really like it someone could suggest a “hand” program. BTW I’ve heard that its very difficult to developpe your hands, has anyone had any success doing so? Posting this was humiliating enough, so please spare the masturbation jokes etc. Thanks in advance.
i’m in the same boat Roman. i don’t know why you’re so embarrassed though. i have a normal size hand with very long and skinny fingers. my hands have also been called “pretty”. now this isn’t what guys usually want to hear. i always wanted hands and forearms like the guys who have those thick rough hands with bowling pin forearms. however, my genetics permit me from altering much of what i was given. i suppose if i did hard labor everyday with my hands and crazy forearm work i could get stronger and rougher hands but i’d be willing to bet they would still be called “pretty”…
I don’t think there is any way to force your hands to become bigger than they are. Hands are not made of muscles, just bone and connective tissue. All the muscles that move your hands are in the forearms. I wouldn’t worry about it though. People who judge you based on the appearance of your hands aren’t worth giving a shit about anyways.
You can make them look stronger with training your forearms and grip; however you can also make them look stronger and tougher with martial arts hands training, such as palm and back of the hand strikes on a punching bag ; sand or bean training, where you put sand. or beans, and build up to rocks or metal ball bearings, etc in a bucket, and you spear your hand into the container, fingers first, then use ridge knuckle thrusts, and side of palm, back of hand, etc. You’re supposed to use a special Chineese lotion after training this way, but I used regular hand cream when I did this program for a coupla years, or I used noe, to get that hard, tough look. You can only build the hand so much even when incredibly strong, but making it look tougher will make it look more “manly”. Also, if you work grip too much, it actually can injure your hand and/or grip, so be cautious in that endeavour.
I definitley have some muscle in my hands and so does every one else. Just some have more then others, bones can be made thicker so maybe try to thcken them somehow?
I have the same problem. I have small wrists and bones in general. Im tall and have wide shoulders thankfully though. Now you can look at this as a blessing or a curse. In the mirror, and in pictures, my small hands, wrists, elbows, and knees make my muscles look much bigger than they are, as they flare out a long ways from those tiny bones. I have a cousin who has huge bones/hands and he is always jealous, as our arms are about the same size, but I look like a body builder, and he looks like a normal guy because his joints and bones are so thick that you can’t tell he has 16" arms. Where I have 16.5" arms, they look much bigger because my elbows and wrists are small (6.5" wrists). I even did auto body work for 10 years, and added very little mass to my hands, so manual labor will not help. The only thing you can do is work the shit out of your forearms, and use those hand grip exercisers, you can thicken your finger muscles a little bit. My hands are definitely bigger than they used to be, as a 3 years of hardcore training has helped me thicken them some, but not a lot. Another bit of advice, I know this one big guy from the gym, he’s about my height 6’2 or 6’3, but he weighs about 260. He’s pretty huge. Saw him at the bar one time, he bought me a beer, and we shook hands, and often my hands feel engulfed when I shake hands with people, and I noticed he had small tiny hands, they looked hardly any bigger than mine. I asked him about it, and he said he’s always had small hands. So the moral of the story is I still think this guy is huge, and I don’t look at someone’s hands when Im distracted by their 50" chest and 19" arms.
At Ironmind, you can order these grippers that start off at 100 pounds of pressure, and there are like 4 levels. Only one person managed to close a number 4 gripper. But anyway, these things will strengthen your grip when used properly. Just go to the Ironmind website, request one of their catalogs, and it’s all right there. BTW. There was a feature on these grippers in one of the “Stuff We Like” columns on this website.
Can I not add forearm size then??
great question, i’ve always wondered how to myself…its funny my structure…i have narrow hips, big chest, wide clavicles, average joints, but small hands and feet, except for the hands and feet, i think the structure helps a lot
I also have small hands, but I have small arms to. How about that?!?
Not much you can do to make them larger, although you can sure make them a lot uglier by developing callouses (don’t wear lifting gloves).
Hi,
If you do push ups on your fingertips it will strengthen your hands start with 5 or so and work your way up. Also, there is a curl you can do with a straight bar, seated, in which you let the bar role down to your finger tips then use your hands and fore arms to power it back up.
Get a raquet ball or hand ball and squeeze. You can do this all day, in work while you are driving, watching TV.
You can work your hands almost every day.
Look around at guys and see who has big strong looking fingers and who doesn’t. Figure out the difference in what they do, it’s not tough. Carpenters, millwrights, plumbers, stone masons, any kind of laborer don’t have girly hands. Lawyers, surgeons, concert pianists, and artists do have girly hands. You need to work with your hands lifting heavy odd shaped things to make your fingers get bigger. There is no muscle but there is tissue that pads the tendons that run along the bones. It’s not just callouses that make the fingers and palms get bigger. I know when I do heavy deadlifts (4x5s), and heavy shrugs, etc, that my hands get bigger. I can’t wear my wedding ring then. Since I’ve been off heavy lifting with tendonitis I can now put my ring back on. Tendons also respond to increased load by growing, not as fast as muscle but the grow to withstand increased load demands too.
Yes, I have noticed the same thing. Good point. Although I should have specified in my post that I was interested in hand size augmentation. not strength. Because I have a good grip. I’d have to agree with you steeleyes, I think the secret is in ODD shaped objects. There probably isnt enough stimulation in gripping a narrow bar (which most of us use). Anyways, thanks for the response guys, I’ll give it a try.
Work your grip strength… farmer’s walk, bar hangs, wheelbarrow walks, wrist curls, etc… they’ll get real strong. As for bigger? Don’t know about your actual hands, maybe a little thicker, but your forearms will look good.
When you mentioned punching rocks and metal ball bearings, I remembering hearing about how some guys train by punching and kicking rocks to intentionally injure themselves. After they’ve injured their hands and feet enough times, they don’t feel pain in them anymore and use them to punch through armor (back when they wore it in combat). Know anything about this?
Roman, Being small-boned, and having very small and skinny fingers, I often break blood vessels in my lower digits… Every once in a while when I deadlift over 300 lbs, the lower pad on my pinkie or ring finger swells up
something fierce and turns black and blue. For the
longest time I attributed this to being a pulled tendon.
Recently I figured out that I am breaking blood vessels
in my skinny fingers. I came to this realization because my fingers always return to normal within an hour or two after swelling up. (This condition also happens during weighted chins.) Does this ever happen to anyone else?
Put about 5lbs of play sand in a 5 gallon bucket. Squeeze away 2-3x’s per week for 50-100 reps. Also try things like thick bars and rope chins/pull downs. Works great for strengthening hands and fingers.
I have prettier hands than anyone else here, trust me. My dad was actually a hands model. My advice: don’t try to fit into the world; instead, make the world fit YOU.
I wonder if there is any truth to the rumor that the size of one’s Mr. Happy is in correlation to the size of one’s fingers? It seems to hold true with me. I can hold a fully inflated basketball in my hand and wrap my fingers around it twice.