Not Just a Man's World

Not so much lessons learned this week, as a lessons learned over the last few months. 

Grip is one of the most ignored but also one of the most vital parts of lifting.  If you can’t hold onto a bar weighing two or three times your bodyweight, it doesn’t matter how strong your legs are – you still won’t be able to deadlift the bar without dropping it.  Similarly, if you are doing weighted pull ups, you need to be able to hold onto the bar securely, otherwise your arms and back will not be the limiting factor.

Grip also has crossover with plenty of real-life scenarios.  A few that instantly spring to mind for me are:

• moving furniture (there’s never an obvious way to pick up furniture that doesn’t involve a pinch grip or other awkward hold);
• opening bottles and jars;
• carrying heavy shopping (particularly important at this time of year); and
• serving up food from a heavy pan that you need to hold up for some reason.

Using grippers

In the second half of this year I’ve been working on improving my grip using grippers.  These are springs of varying tensions of which the official competition brand are made by Captains of Crush, but cheaper and equally good if you are interested in improving your grip and less interested in competing are sets made by Ultimate Grip.

Gripper collection in difficulty order (bottom left to top right) - notice how unchalked the top row ones still are...

Ultimate Grip provide some useful guidance on how to develop grip strength through progressive workouts.  The important thing to remember though is that grip strength is based on muscles and like every other part of your workout you should aim to apply the same principles of sets and reps and frequency as you do to the rest of your training.

How have I progressed with my grip workouts

When I began in the summer, I couldn’t close the easiest of our grippers (HG100).  I can now get a reasonable set of about 10 reps out with each hand on the next gripper in the range (HG150) and have noticed a big improvement in other areas of my life.

Driving to work I frequently only use a pinch grip for the steering wheel now, and I don’t exert any effort for that either.  My rock climbing has also improved, climbing on some of the routes with pinch holds that were previously unapproachable for me.

Other grip workout methods

There are other things you can do that don’t involve investing in grippers including lifting and holding weights plates in a pinch grip or making bars and dumbbell handles thicker (with a towel or similar wrapped round them).

Diesel Crew provide an insightful article on homemade grip devices which is well worth reading.

When to fit in a grip workout

This is perhaps the one thing I’ve struggled most with.  When I first started out I could do a grip workout at the end of my arms workouts twice a week.  But my grip improved to the point where I was no longer getting easy gains at about the same time that I also increased my arms workouts to increase my work capacity.

For two weeks I watched my numbers of reps reduce, rather than increase, before finally giving up on trying to do grip workouts at the end of a workout.  I now try to fit in a grip workout on two of my days off (usually Monday and Friday evenings).

Other interesting reading on grip work

• If you really get into grip work, you could consider joining the Grip Authority.
• Try browsing the forums on Gripboard – a repository for all things grippy.
• Mark Twight, in his book Extreme Alpinism, recommends holding a bar parallel to the floor with straight arms as if you had just done a deadlift.  Then open out your hand, letting gravity cause the bar to roll to the tips of your fingers (but without dropping it) before curling your fingers back up to bring the bar back into the palm of your hand.  As you get stronger, you can add weight to the bar.
• The World’s Strongest Librarian, Josh Hanagarne, got into bending nails which can only do good things for your grip.  His blog is well worth checking out for general reading if you want to kick back and read some interesting stuff – he writes about just about anything and everything!
• Finally, for some reading about someone who does completely crazy things for finger strength, I also recommend Adam T Glass’s blog “Walk the road less travelled”.  Adam is one crazy guy and if you’re squeamish like me then some of the videos where he gets injured might turn your stomach.
• For something amazing, watch this clip on Adam’s blog of Jedd Johnston setting a new world record for the two hands pinch lift (256.4lb).  Impressive (and inspirational) stuff.

Is grip something that you actively train, or do you train it as a by-product of your main workouts?

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned this week: the menstrual cycle and making workouts more challenging
2. Lessons learned: workouts to suit your body
3. Lessons learned this week: the art of relaxation
4. Powerlifting progress 2010: week thirty (bodyweight 1)