The World of Gripping Hand Strength

Hand Strength, it's a sport. Did you know? I didn't. When people exercise, weightlift, bodybuild or whatever your cup of tea is, they mostly think about bulging biceps, pumped chest and deltoids. There is not a soul on this planet that would think of indestructable tendons and cartilage as hard as adamantium..

The strength of your hands barely comes to mind. But, let's just think about it for a moment, would you be able to do a chin up without your hands? Could you really do a 400lbs bench without using your hands? Unless you are David Copperfield (I mean, he makes elephants disappear so he probably can get away with a no-hand 400lbs bench press), you will not succeed in doing so. I have yet to see a "no-hands-chinup/ bench press".

In the old days, hand strength was much more of an issue than it is now. Someone's strength was measured by how great of a grip he/ or she possessed. Card ripping, steel bending, tearing through telephone books or lifting odd objects. Grip played a big role back then.

Hand strength people, is very important. Not to the extent that you should be overly focused on it, but it can be very beneficial for your future strength gains.. How so?

Well, let's take the dead man's lift for example: A heavy bar, laying on the floor and that bugger needs to be picked up. If you have a set of women hands on you (no offense) you will not be able to pick up much, let alone even come close to a full deadlift. When you have a vice grip, and are able to hold onto that bar for dear life, you have a much better change to get that lift.

The bench, I'll give another example. The next time you are trying to bench something, instead of just gripping the bar, GRIP the bar! Squeeze that bar so hard that you feel tension throughout your whole arms, all the way to your back.. Think about breaking it in half.. No doubt that when you do the lift, it will come up much faster and you'll feel a hell of a lot stronger!

Now, let me break down a little bit what types of handstrength there are, because if you thought you could just by your average hand gripper and expect to get a better 'squeeze' you are wrong amigo!

Thick bar lifting: This was always for me the hardest one. It involves bars that are thicker than average, so those with tiny mittens will have a big disadvantage. However, don't let that dissapoint you in advance, because I know some guys with small hands but a hell of grip.

One arm lifts: There are a variety of lifts here, which can be O-ring lifts (the Dinnie Stones come to mind, something my friend Thorsten just finished trying and where he succeeded!), V-bar lifts (my personal favorite) and hell, some even get a kick out of lifting weird objects like half an iron cast dumbell by the head: the famous BLOB lift.

Pinching: We all pinched the occasional nipple of course, but this is a whole different ball game. In hand strength, pinching is grabbing heavy objects by mostly the tip of your fingers, The palm of your hand is somewhat involved but to explain you about handplacement , nah, not really necessary. No worries, I'll provide you with plenty of links later in the article if you would like to get your hands dirty...

Grippers: This is very specific and the most common when thinking of hand strength. You have probably tried them once in your life, those store bought grippers with very low resistance. I suggest you go ahead and have a look here to find out some real grippers. These are the Captains of Crush, produced by Ironmind and THE standard to proof you have some grip. Ironmind has even brought out qualifications ranging from #1 to #4 (also there are some girly grippers below the #1). If you close a #3 you have a good grip, if you have closed a #4 you have a steel grip. Only a few have been able to do this feat of strength.

Ironmind has exposed the world of grip and did quite a good job! There are books available, and even some of the World Strongest Man competitions have events that involve hand strength.

Wrist Strength/ Bar bending/ Scroll bending: Last but not least, I would like to mention steel bending. Not rubber bending, but bending pure steel, like spikes (not the little ones, that's dangerous) (trust me, I tried that and pinched a whole in my palm.. ). You can start with bending nails and move up to long bar steel bending.. Who knows you might become as skilled as John Brookfield one day..

So now what? You would like to get a better grip on your life, I mean, on your training? I'd suggest first you go and buy some grippers, preferably the CoC's. They are good for building up some decent hand strength. Next, implement some thick bar training. Look around in the gym and see if there is a thickbar laying around. Go try and dome some curls with it, or some overhand deadlifts. You will be in for a surprise! Your forearms will be sore beyond and you will get a completely different pump, a vein popping one! Another thing you could do, if there are no thickbars available, is to throw a towel over the chinning bar, and hang for time.

As far as pinching, place some weight plates next to eachother and try to pinch them. Pick them up with your thumb on the opposite side, pinch them with 3 fingers, two fingers and just have a play around. No need to be to serious.

That's about it, you just did a bit of grip training there!

If you are serious about doing some real grip exercises and want a vice grip, visit the Gripboard or have a look at the English Gripmaster: David Horne's site.

Another good one, but doesn't focus too much on grip is Beyond Strong. This site is hosted by professional stuntman Nick McKinless, who is stunting his aussie as off in movies like the Matrix, Sherlock Holmes and RockNRolla.. Not too bad.. And I quote:

GRIP TRAINING

It's not all bad. There was a time when men were judged by the strength of their handshake not by the size of their wallet. Pick a grip feat and work for it. Strong hands are cool. Talking about Blobs is not.

Source: Beyond Strong

I used to write for this website, so who knows you come across my mug there. Last but not least it Wheyconsortium, home of the thickbar daddy: Steve Gardener. This guy is a living encylopedia and knows all there is to know and then some more. Pretty much same as mister David Horne. However, Steve stands out in thickbar lifting and grippers. He does some crazy things with thickbar dumbells, like the Inch, and he even lifted the Millennium dumbell!

The DIESELCREW is another site I would like to mention. These boys don't run on DIESEL at all. Seeing these guys in action one wonders if it not kerosine what they run on.. They come up with the most innovative exercises, stuff you and I want never even dream of. And, it works! Heavy sand bag training, wrist and steel bending tips, you name it and they will have the info for you and some.