Improving Grip??

Chris1712

Chris1712

Chris1712

Soldato
Joined
29 Jul 2004
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Location
Bristol
Hi guys, further to my previous thread on weight loss here I've been hitting the gym 3x a week for the last 3 weeks along with a slight change diet and its working. 3kg down so far, and strength is up.

Anyway, I feel on a few excercises my grip is letting me down. For instance on lateral pulldowns its my hands and forearms that really feel it rather than my lats/biceps. Simliarly on bicep curls its my forearms and wrists.
I'm fairly confident my form is ok, both the above are done on machines and I've followed instructions meticulously and found comfortable and correct positions on both.

So, has anyone ever had this problem? Any advice? Find a 'gripmaster' type device and just use it while I'm sat at work? Any recommendations?

Cheers guys!
 
I use some of those squeezy things which does forearms pretty good. A few minutes on a powerball is amazing for grip and general forearm strength
 
If you're feeling it on bicep curls in your forearms you may be slightly flexing your wrists, have a look and ensure your wrists are fixed and doesn't move.

If these don't help then as others have suggested. Wrist curls and static hangs would be the best bet. I find leg day a good day to work on grip. By this I mean SLDL and lunge walking are good oppurtunities to do 'hangs' without having to devote time to them soley.
 
Gripmasters are quite good for improving strength in your fingers or at least I know quite a few climbers who use them, if you're just starting out or don't have great grip strength to start with then I'd probably not suggest going above the 9lb/finger versions. I know it may not sound like a huge amount but if you want to do it for reps then pick something you can do and progress to the heavier options when you are better at it. I think it did help with my climbing but it's difficult to quantify, for the sake of £15 odd it's probably worth a punt.
 
Or hold yourself from a chin up bar as long as possible, then with weights round your waist.

Rack up a BB with a stack of weight (put l-brackets on so that you don't have to drop it far) and pick it up and hold it as long as possible.

Plate pinches are also useful.
 
Firstly, nice one for wanting to make a change and going ahead and doing it.
Its something I recently have been through and am loving the results and am now really really enjoying weight training. So good luck with it all!!!

Anyway....
Grip was really an issue for me at one point.
I did get some gloves but then read that you should really try and keep at it so that your grip/hands get stronger, so stopped using them after a week :/

I found I struggled more with machines as most at the gym I go to have rubber on the bit you hold.

Changed attachments for things like lat pull downs, so that they were bars which didnt use rubber grips.
Bit painfull at first as my hands were not very tough....but after a few weeks the skin hardened up to it.

Now tend to only use machines if I really have to and try stick to free weights.
Think doing deadlifts has especially helped with my grip.
 
Deadlift guys - at what point did your grip start to become an issue?

At about 90Kg I found that I had to go from double overhand to mixed grip (otherwise I nearly dropped the weight towards the end of the third set) and that grip is still working fine for me with 3 x 8 at 105Kg.
 
Robbie G said:
Deadlift guys - at what point did your grip start to become an issue?

At about 90Kg I found that I had to go from double overhand to mixed grip (otherwise I nearly dropped the weight towards the end of the third set) and that grip is still working fine for me with 3 x 8 at 105Kg.
Click to expand...

At around 80 I first found I had to use a mixed grip.

I have however, recently changed to a 5x5 programme which has the weight progressing up each set and I think it has had the effect of 'easing me in' and my grip has gotten much better.

I have always made sure that i atleast try overhand grip before I make the decision to switch to mixed as it seems to vary each week.

For example I hit 100kg 2 weeks ago (first lift to hit 3 figures. Not impressive compared to allot of you, but I was well chuffed)...found after 2 reps I had to switch to mixed.

Then last week went to 102.5kg and was fine with overhand for all 5 reps.

Do think its important to work on your grip and try make it better rather than what some people I know do, which is just decided their grips rubbish so they just opt for gloves/straps etc straight away and try and bypass it.
 
Robbie G said:
Deadlift guys - at what point did your grip start to become an issue?

At about 90Kg I found that I had to go from double overhand to mixed grip (otherwise I nearly dropped the weight towards the end of the third set) and that grip is still working fine for me with 3 x 8 at 105Kg.
Click to expand...

At about 200kg it starts to get difficult for me - I can still do it, but it becomes more of a single rep affair as it preys too much on my mind otherwise.

I used double over hand until about 150kg after that I have to use mixed grip.
 
Robbie G said:
Deadlift guys - at what point did your grip start to become an issue?

At about 90Kg I found that I had to go from double overhand to mixed grip (otherwise I nearly dropped the weight towards the end of the third set) and that grip is still working fine for me with 3 x 8 at 105Kg.
Click to expand...

i do just over 100kg 4x6 atm, by about the 4th set a couple of reps in i have to switch to mixed grip.

However,

When i first started doing them a couple of months ago, i was struggling to keep grip in the first set.

Slowly but surely the grip is improving. It's even showing in my barbell shrugs, am able to keep grip going for a lot longer.

Just stick with it, it'll come :D
 
Now that I'm used to the mixed grip, I'm going to keep using it whether or not my grip is failing. I'm assuming there's no downside to this tactic?

Sorry to hijack OP!! Hopefully ok as relevant to discussion.
 
Personally I'd try and improve your double overhand as much as possible. If you really struggle, make sure you alternate the mix grip (i.e. swap which way round the hands are). I'd love to do double over hand 200kg but that's not going to happen :p

Bear in mind that andy Bolton did 457kg raw!!! :eek:
 
Thanks for the hijack guys :p. Ofcourse I don't mind as most of the useful stuff for me was in the first few posts.

Will look into a good grip spring handle thing (:p) and dig out my powerball.
 
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