GRIP! Part 1

Why is it, that very few people who exercise for strength consider training grip?  When training for true strength, how many times have you felt your grip has let you down?  I would suggest the most obvious example of this for most people is when training the deadlift.  I know for my self that if I'm doing strength or power sets with the deadlift, that my grip tends to stop me from pulling the bar as I get towards the end of my sets, how about you?

Now you might be saying, well that's what wrist wraps are for.  Hmm, well sure, that will help you pull the bar, but I am an advocate of only being as strong as your weakest link.  If my grip can't pull the weight, why pull the weight at all?

Oldtime strongmen focused hugely on grip.  For them to lift heavy and awkward objects, they had no option but to have the grip to do it.  There were no grip aids, or wraps!

If  you were to have a hunt around on the net, you might be surprised to find that there is a huge cult following for grip strength and training.  There are numerous folk who focus their whole training around grip. I myself never used to train grip specifically until not too long ago, but once the grip bug bit me, I became hooked.

I have always been aware of my grip as I spend a lot of time hanging of pull up bars, throwing KB's around and doing power lifting.  But I never considered training just grip to help with other exercises, I always just figured that my grip would progress with what I was doing.  And to a degree it did, but since training grip, I feel my progress in other areas has progressed a lot quicker.

So when I'm talking about grip, what am I talking about.  It is pretty well accepted that there are three types of grip.
Crush grip - Mashing grippers, crushing cans
Pinch grip - Picking up an object with fingers on one side and thumb on the other
Support grip - Hanging of bars, pulling bars

I believe all three types of grip should be trained for complete grip and hand strength.  And how do you train them you ask?

There are many many ways, and I will list a few, but first I will  tell you one way for each which on there own will greatly improve your grip.

Crush grip - The main way this is trained is by using grippers.  But not you basic gripper where you do hundreds of reps.  Head over to Ironmind and get yourself a set of Captains of Crush grippers, the gold standard of strength grippers.

Pinch grip - The easiest way to do this, by weight plate pinching.  Not only can you pinch heavier weights to progress, but multiple plates as well to make it more difficult.

Support grip - You probably think doing deadlifts would be the go, and you would be right, especially one hand deadlifts, but I like another exercise, towel hangs.  Sounds basic..try it.  Throw a towel over a pull up bar, double it up and try and hang off.  The end goal, hanging off it with one hand.

So, a very quick run down on grip, but there is a lot more, and I will address some more in part 2.