My grip strength isn’t so good and I was wondering if there is some sort of grip program or a few exercises I can do to improve it. I’m doing the Madcow 5X5 program right now and I don’t think it’ll cut too much into my recovery to do some grip strength stuff once or twice a week.
Just a note: my forearms themselves aren’t small or anything so I don’t care really about hypertrophy in that area (of course, I wouldn’t mind it either).
So far all I do for my grip is rowing and deadlifting without straps on all sets except for my 5th set of deadlift (the heavy set). I was thinking about doing some thick bar holds after my workouts (put a towel around the bar and hold it for a minute or so), but is there some other stuff I can be doing? (My dad has some of those gripper things but they’re all too easy)
You could also get a gripper, that will help if your crushing strength sucks. Also, when doing deadlifts, hold the weight for the last 1-2 sets as long as possible on the last rep of those sets. You could also do as many of your deadlifts as possible with a double overhand grip. Pinch gripping helps a lot. If you work on pinch gripping, you can do a “reverse hook grip” which is where you put your thumb on your fingers to help hold them in place(as opposed to next to them), which you should probably do anyways. Regular hook grips(with the fingers over the thumb) hurt a lot, but I guess it helps to hold onto stuff really well. Plus what xWILLx said.
I like doing towel pull ups, your fingers are worked crazy with that.
Also, I like wrapping two towels around each handle of a trap bar, put some heavy weight on and hold onto the four ends with each hand and do shrugs or just holds for time. (Total of 4 towels and 8 ends, four ends in each hand.)
I’m doing db rows and farmer’s walks to work on my grip. I read one member (Hanley?) who said that really helped shoot his deadlift through the roof.
My DL has been stuck at 385-390 for a few months now. I feel like my back & legs can easily handle 400+ but my grip starts to loosen pretty quickly whenever I go over 350.
You dont need anything fancy for grip strength. Just simply deadlift without straps. At the moment is the weakest link in the chain, so that will be targeted the most. It will quickly catch up with the rest.
IMO most people encounter grip problems because they rely on straps, gloves etc. in the first place. Drop them and they will no longer be an issue.
And yeah, I’m a big believer in just using a lifting belt and nothing else when deadlifting. People who use straps are dumb, because you’re only as strong as your weakest link. IMO, someone who can’t deadlift 500 lbs without straps, can’t deadlift 500 lbs.
My grip / Wrist strength increased 10 fold when I started training with macebell / indian clubs. The torque on your wrists forces you to grip harder. Within 2 weeks I went from one rep with the captains of crush #2 to 5 solid reps and almost closing #2.5.
Thick wrist rollers are good to for forearm endurance and grip.
And yeah, I’m a big believer in just using a lifting belt and nothing else when deadlifting. People who use straps are dumb, because you’re only as strong as your weakest link. IMO, someone who can’t deadlift 500 lbs without straps, can’t deadlift 500 lbs.[/quote]
If you do enough volume, even with straps, your grip might just improve. Mine did. Blanket statements like this are stupid.
[quote]NewDamage wrote:
TheSolution wrote:
Should be fine.
And yeah, I’m a big believer in just using a lifting belt and nothing else when deadlifting. People who use straps are dumb, because you’re only as strong as your weakest link. IMO, someone who can’t deadlift 500 lbs without straps, can’t deadlift 500 lbs.
If you do enough volume, even with straps, your grip might just improve. Mine did. Blanket statements like this are stupid. [/quote]
Agreed, many people have grip issues due to the size of their hands. My hands are large for a short guy. I’m 5’7", but have 6’ hands. I only missed one deadlift, actually this past week due to a grip issue. and that was because I didn’t lock in my grip right and pulled to quickly.
[quote]tom63 wrote:
NewDamage wrote:
TheSolution wrote:
Should be fine.
And yeah, I’m a big believer in just using a lifting belt and nothing else when deadlifting. People who use straps are dumb, because you’re only as strong as your weakest link. IMO, someone who can’t deadlift 500 lbs without straps, can’t deadlift 500 lbs.
If you do enough volume, even with straps, your grip might just improve. Mine did. Blanket statements like this are stupid.
Agreed, many people have grip issues due to the size of their hands. My hands are large for a short guy. I’m 5’7", but have 6’ hands. I only missed one deadlift, actually this past week due to a grip issue. and that was because I didn’t lock in my grip right and pulled to quickly.
[/quote]
While hand/wrist problems CAN cause a grip issue, I agree with The Solution. If you cant pull the weight without straps, then you CANT pull the weight. Any issue with grip is a personal problem.
Im not saying that straps dont have there place, nor that pulling with them is necessarily a bad thing, that all depends on your goals. But in the case of trying to improve your GRIP STRENGTH (which is the basis for this thread) you are better off leaving them in your gym bag and pulling without them.
Like I said before, your weakest link will always be hit the hardest.
[quote]Phydeaux wrote:
I’m doing db rows and farmer’s walks to work on my grip. I read one member (Hanley?) who said that really helped shoot his deadlift through the roof.
My DL has been stuck at 385-390 for a few months now. I feel like my back & legs can easily handle 400+ but my grip starts to loosen pretty quickly whenever I go over 350.
[/quote]
That woulda been me alright… The problem first happened when I got into equipped lifting. I had a sudden overload of 10-15kg more than I had been using and my grip just wasn’t up to it. I did alot of work with farmers walks and dumbbell rows and they made a big difference.
It has already been said but I will re-iterate…I’ve been lifting weights for about 10 years now. I’d say that for the first 7 years my forearms were embarrassingly small and my grip strength stupidly weak. I threw away my straps and gloves and within a year my forearms and grip were one of my strengths.
Notice I said “throw away”. I also went through the motions of “only using straps on my heavy set of deads” and things like that, but I didn’t see improvement until I threw them away completely. Every set of every lift with no straps (and no gloves).
Another thing: I threw away my straps right around the time I had incorporated 10x3 sets of rack pulls into my back routine, and that along with pull-ups did the trick pretty well. Try doing high volume rack pulls; you’ll kill your forearms in addition to all of the normal benefits of rack pulls. Things like grippers and “wrist curls” are a waste of time IMHO.