| How to build grip strength? Lift, carry and hold heavy things. Keep practicing opening the jars by yourself. Carry your luggage (And stand tall). Help move stuff. Shake hands with a firm grip. Wrestle with someone. Lift weights. Tell yourself it's easy.
How to build grip strength in the gym? Hold stuff, especially stuff that's heavy. It's that simple. Use dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, medicine balls, battle ropes, chains and any other implement you have to hold. Use TRX's and Pull Up Bars to use your own body weight. Do it often. Dr. Halton says 2-3x/wk is good. I'd agree for busy 30-60 year olds. You could do more than 3x/wk, but its situation and individual specific and if you're younger, you can do it 1-6x/wk, depending on your life and sports schedules. As with most anything moderation and work + rest = success.
Grip Strength and Pull Ups Push Ups are cool and Pull Ups are even cooler. I think I'm pretty close to cracking the code on both for people these exercises haven't traditionally come easy for.
Current Recipe: - We meet clients where they are:
- Level 1a: can they hold their own body weight with assistance (band on foot)
- Level 1b: can they hold their own body weight with assistance (band on shin)
- Level 1c: can they hold their own body weight
- Level 2a: can they lower their body weight under control (negatives)
- Level 2b: can they pull their own bodyweight up with assistance (band on foot)
- Level 2c: can they pull their own bodyweight up with assistance (band on shin)
- Level 3: can they pull their own body weight up
- Clients must use proper technique:
- 1. hold the bar between their throat and collarbone (preferably collarbone)
- 2. Head packed (don't stick your chin over the bar).
- 3. Shoulders down and back (retracted and depressed) with chest up
- 4. Ribs down
- 5. Knees tucked, bent behind or straight (but not crossed).
- We aim for a specific total volume to get sufficient stimulus (varies/level)
- L1abc: 4x8 (a rep = 5sec hold; a set = 2 reps of 5sec hold with a 10sec rest in between).
- L2a: 4x20sec (hold 5sec @ top, hold 5 sec @ 1/3 down, 5sec @ 2/3 down and 5sec @ full hang)
- L2bc: start at 4x1 rep and progress to 4x4 reps, by adding 1 rep per workout, not per set).
- L3: start at 4x1 and progress to 4x10; when you get 4x10, start over at 4x1, with external resistance (use Friend's dip/chin belt).
- We keep the reps low for push ups (8-12) and pull ups (10) per set (pull up reps vary by level; see above) to focus on strength and hypertrophy, not endurance.
- We currently aim for a minimum of 4 sets.
- The client works to get leaner, which positively changes their strength to weight ratio (as they get either lighter in body weight and/or less body fat and more muscle), it makes it easier to push and pull their own weight.
Being strong is important as this article shows and being able to do pull ups (chin ups, neutral grip pull ups, etc...) is a great way to get a strong grip, get stronger and get leaner.
It's so important that we changed our Q1 programming from all team training (everyone does the same exercise at the same time) to team and station training (in stations people rotate between exercises) for the 1st time in 9 years, so we could keep the momentum going on our grip and pull up strength we developed last year.
Why didn't we do it sooner than 9 years? Our Q1 team training programs yielded outstanding weight loss results and the workouts were fun and fast.
Also, we didn't have pull up bars the 1st, 2 years, and then we hadn't cracked the code on how to properly progress people who couldn't do it. I think I have now (finally). Remember I worked in pro and college sports as a strength and conditioning coach and most of the athletes could already do some of these things, so we didn't need to spend much time on progressions and those that couldn't we did assisted pull ups. I sparingly used negatives and holds, but creating the right order of progressions and then the discovery last year of the minimum stimulus needed to promote change, which is currently 4 sets for us of a specific number of reps or time, is what helped us accelerate our progress faster and led to adding pull ups in our Q1 programming a MUST.
If you want to live a long life, so you can do all the things on your bucket list and experience all the wonderful things that lie ahead in your life and the world, consider working on your grip strength and getting leaner.
If you want help with either, reply and let me know.
Looking forward to tomorrows neutral grip pull ups,
Coach Mike
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