Does anybody have a good way they can reccomend to make thick grips for bars?
I train at a commercial gym so there are no thick bars, but i would like to use something similar to improve my grip strength
Best I could come up with in my head (yet to try it yet) is to get of of those floaty pipe/tubes that people use in pools cut it roughly the size of my hand, slice it to the middle and hole out enough area to place the bar inside of it.
get some large O-rings to place on either end so that it doesn’t slide back and forth (imagine how horrible that would be benching and then you slide out into a wide grip shudder)
use a hot glue gun to hold the o-rings in place.
Im sure there has to be a better way but this is all i could come up with off the top of my head
benefit to foam is that its cheap and similar to flesh in that it will “give” some as you grab it therefore absorbing your force so you have to grip that much harder
Quite a tricky problem because you are going to a commercial gym.
At home, a standard bar + PVC pipe of various thicknesses = build up a whole bunch of different thickgrip bars. I even had a 5’ spinlock bar with a 5" thick handle (that is not a misprint) - it is like a log, and you can even use it vertically. Obviouly two handed, nobody can wrap their hand around that thing.
Anyway, your best bet is this: 2x a long piece of 6" wide and not too thick rubber, long enough to wrap around the bar multiple times. The longer the length, the more wraps and thicker it gets. Also helps grip slippage. That way you can carry these two bits around the gym with you.
Now where to buy it? Try getting something like a shower mat, or doormat, that is pretty thin and flexible, and cut it up to size. You might find some thin rubber flooring, or a yoga mat, that also will do the trick.
You could make it a bit wider and attach some velcro at the ends to lock it down once attached, if desired.
There are some things called EZ grips that can also be used but they are more to take effort away from your grip, than put more load on it.
the pipe insulation is probably going to work best for barbells
i can just cut it 1/2 the length of the barbell and carry it in my gym bag, i can also get a larger 1 to attach to the middle and do foam presses with (so great on your shoulders).
those tyler grips look like exactly what i’m looking for but seem more to be for dumbbells which isn’t a problem. i emailed them about that issue so we’ll see what they say if they reply.
i’m pretty sure i can go to home depot and cut some urethane to the proper length as well instead of buying those. we’ll see
Does using garden gloves around the bar alright? I use garden gloves and it gives a good thickness…I can’t completey wrap my hand around the bar like I would without the garden gloves. Does anyone think it’s alright to use that?
I had my first workout with tyler grips today. I only used them on incline dumbbell curls. The pump in the hands, forearms and biceps was better than usual, but I had to drop the wieght down a bit.
I like them so far, my only complaint is that the inside diameter seems to be a bit to big to fit snuggly on a standard bar or dumbbell. But once they rest on the inside of the dumbbell plate, they obviously can’t slide.
If you’re training at a commercial gym, my favorite tactic is to take the barpads people use for squats and wrap them around the bar. It’s not quite a thickbar, but it’s a very easy solution without bringing anything in.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
If you’re training at a commercial gym, my favorite tactic is to take the barpads people use for squats and wrap them around the bar. It’s not quite a thickbar, but it’s a very easy solution without bringing anything in.[/quote]
T3hPwnisher…great avatar! Cody was one bad dude! “Final Fight” was one of the very best arcade games.
I wrapped two hand towels (one on each end) snugly around my barbell and used electrical tape to get it to stay. It works very well, but I’m not sure if you could do this in a commercial gym.
[quote]Mister T. wrote:
You could use a towel. Then again, I’m not sure what you’re using this for, so that may or may not work.[/quote]
I like this as the simplest and easiest way. I get a great forearm workout wrapping the towel, and i just wrap it around more if I need to work the forearms even more.
