The development of muscles and tendons in the forearms occurs during any strength training when it is necessary to hold some weight in the hands. The main thing is not to interfere with the process, but this is exactly what people often do, after which they are surprised at their weak grip. I'll tell you how to avoid making such mistakes.

Let's decide on priorities

The article is primarily for those who, having forgotten wrist straps at home and not finding them in the gym, cannot train normally. Because any weight, more than two-thirds of your own weight, simply falls out of your hands. And also for people who tie themselves to the horizontal bar, even if they do pull-ups without weights on their belt. That is, they are simply unable to hold their own weight hanging for 20-30 seconds.

Someone will smile, they say, this doesn’t happen. Well, I'm glad for you and that you managed to avoid beginner mistakes by developing sufficient grip strength. But there are few such people. I constantly see a funny picture in gyms when, working even with average weights in blocks, on a barbell and not with the heaviest dumbbells, people constantly use wrist straps.

Someone makes excuses, they say, “ I take the extra load off my forearms so I can focus on the working muscle group and not think about my arms" This seems reasonable. But, unfortunately, it only seems. In fact, abuse of wrist straps not only leads to stagnation in the development of the muscles of the forearms, but even to their degradation.

That is, below we will talk about the reasonable development of grip strength in order to avoid imbalance in the hands. And for further strength progress in general, this is useful.

As for extreme work on developing the strength of fingers and forearms, when nails and coins are bent and an iPhone is crushed in a fist, this is a topic for a separate article and is not relevant to today’s conversation.

What to do to effectively develop your grip

First of all, don't waste your time on useless exercises. Especially in the early stages of working with weights. We are talking about various kinds of flexion and extension of the hands with a barbell and dumbbells, such as these:

I have never seen a person who really pumped up their forearms with such exercises, and I tried it myself in the past - nothing worked. But they can injure your hands once or twice!

As a bonus, I suggest you take a look at the video Yaroslav Brin about arm training. He talks directly about the hands and forearms between the 8th and 15th minutes:

Greetings to all lovers of a healthy lifestyle and sports!

Every athlete who spends his free time in the gym needs to have a muscular body and a sculpted torso. All this is achieved with the help of heavy projectiles and large weights. The result of the progression depends proportionally on the strength. We perform most pull-ups, lifts, and push-ups with our hands; developed hand strength is an important component. Today we will study grip strength training. Let's consider the theoretical and practical aspect of training hands and fingers in a strength sport - bodybuilding.

Strengthening your hand grip

Many may question the importance of grip strengthening for bodybuilders. After all, grip strength training is needed primarily for fighters performing in, on the tatami, in. And when lifting a barbell or dumbbells, muscle mass grows and, at the same time, endurance develops in the pre-shoulder area of ​​the arm. Yes, but not all exercises in training programs are aimed at strengthening your hand grip. To give strength to your hands, you need special grip strength training.

So what does a well-developed grip strength training program look like? Let's consider the theoretical side.

Exercises to strengthen your grip develop:

• High degree of compression. You can clearly see this when shaking hands. A person with a strong handshake has strong fingers, the training is obvious.
• Ability to hold a load for a long time with hands and fingers. had strong fingers, in the circus arenas they demonstrated such techniques with weights and heavy balls that indicate regular grip strength training.
• Pinch force. Here we are talking about a strong thumb. The strength of the thumb indicates the strength of the entire limb.
• Powerful brush. A trained hand can easily hold an object in a vertical position while suspended.

The above components together will give you strong arm strength when working with free weights and weights. Now let’s look at each point separately and see what objects can be used to train grip strength for an athlete new to the gym. But before starting any workout, you need to warm up. In our case, clenching and unclenching fingers into a fist. Rotational movements of the hands.

Hand and finger training for beginners

Training the fingers by increasing the force of compression.

Hand expanders and rubber rings are suitable for strengthening. Daily back-and-forth movements with the expander will improve the strength of your fingers and hands. A tennis ball works great. Squeeze it both completely with all phalanges, and separately, for example, with your thumb and forefinger. In the future, try holding the expander or ball in a static position for a few seconds. Great grip strength training.

Load holding force.

Without well-developed holding strength, it will be difficult to develop overall arm endurance. To do this, use thick barbells during training. The neck will come in handy. By training with a large bar, an athlete will increase his grip strength by 100 percent. There is no axle from the lining; purchase a handy neck extender for a standard barbell at a sports store. If you don’t want to bother, I suggest you take a weight plate in each hand in the exercise machine and walk yourself from one wall to the other. This is a "farmer's walk". The longer the walks, the stronger the grip will become. Don’t grab heavy plates or dumbbells the first time – develop gradually.

Plucking force.

Training the hands, or rather the fingers, promotes progress by increasing the weight of the weights. An elementary exercise for finger endurance is the process of holding a barbell disc with your fingers. To begin, take five-kilogram disks. If you have strong fingers and the disk has a protrusion in a lying position, grab it with your finger and try to hold it suspended.

At home, you can train your grip strength by doing push-ups from the floor on your fingers. An affordable option for beginners is to take a few pharmaceutical or bank rubber bands (about ten pieces) and place them on your fingers. Start moving your fingers to the sides so that the equipment does not fly off. For the more experienced, I suggest strengthening your fingers with door pull-ups.

On the horizontal bar using a monkey grip. While hanging on the bar, remove your thumb. Hang on the phalanges of four fingers for some time.

A homemade version of grip strength training. Tie the end of the rope to the tube, and fasten the other to a dumbbell or weight plate. Using rotational movements, lift the load, winding it around the pipe.

There are also special items for developing finger strength. The latter are shown in the photo.

Powerful hand.

Strengthening the hand grip depends on the strength of holding objects with the hand. To train hand endurance in general, there are the following types of exercises and objects. Pull-up on the horizontal bar. Well, I don’t think there’s any need to explain the pull-up technique, but pay attention to what methods of pull-ups exist. Any exercises with weights will strengthen your arm.

At home, we wring out the washed towel with our hands. Simple but tasteful training of hands and fingers. Focus on rope climbing once a week.

If you have extra money, buy a special exercise machine to strengthen your hand. Powerball is a sports ball based on the gyroscope principle. If you want to hold the ball in your hand more tightly, it wants to escape from your embrace. Sotsky simulator (buffalo). Trains fingers, hand, forearm.

A strong grip is:

high degree of compression. A person immediately feels the strong grip of the person whose hand he is shaking, because with a strong grip, it feels as if your hand is being squeezed in a vice.

the ability to hold a certain load for a long time. For example, a person with a strong grip can calmly hold a kettlebell or dumbbell with outstretched arms in a static position for quite a long time.

brush strength. If an athlete has a well-developed hand, he can lift objects and hold them in a vertical position for a long time, even if, by its modification, the object is such that one part of it significantly outweighs another. An example would be a chair. A person with a strong grip calmly lifts it and holds it only by the front legs in an upright position.

What to strive for? For example, a person with sufficiently developed grip strength can tear a telephone directory in half or tear a deck of cards in two. By the way, if you manage to tear it not into two, but into four whole parts, then you can rightfully consider yourself a hero. And, of course, bending nails and straightening horseshoes. Strongmen have delighted people with such tricks since time immemorial, and you can also surprise your friends and acquaintances by performing something similar. Start by crushing a potato in your hands.

By the way, maybe someone doesn’t know that there are no muscles in the fingers; the muscles that move the fingers are located in the forearms. Their peculiarity is that they perform several functions at once: flexion of the fingers, flexion of the hand, adduction of the hand. Developing your grip without developing your forearms is impossible!

Compression grip: The most common grip strengthening exercise is to squeeze something in your palm. In any sports store you can purchase a wrist expander - the simplest and time-tested device for strengthening a “compressive” grip or a Captains of Crush expander.

Training with wrist expanders Captains of Crush IronMind. We recommend starting to train your grip with a Captains of Crush resistance band that you can fully squeeze (so that the handles of the resistance band touch) 5-10 times. The words “fully compress” are very important. There are good reasons - both physiological and psychological - why most exercises with Captains of Crush resistance bands should be performed through the full range of motion of the resistance band. From a physiological point of view, full-range exercises develop hand grip strength more evenly. The grip during such training becomes more universal and much more applicable in life. Psychologically, training to the full amplitude allows you to develop confidence and get more pleasure from exercise: it is always more pleasant to perform an exercise correctly and to the end, be it a bench press, pull-ups or working with an expander. One full compression of the expander is more useful and more effective than several “half” ones. That is why, when choosing an expander, you should not exaggerate your strength and start with one that you can fully compress to the end. In our experience, most men are best started with the Captains of Crush Trainer.

Professional athletes say that it is thanks to bench presses and barbell lifts with a thick neck, they achieved the highest results and significantly improved their grip strength. After training with equipment that has a thick bar, athletes can easily squeeze grippers to the maximum the first time.

You can use a baseball or softball to train your grip strength. It is pierced with an eye bolt, and a weight is attached to the eye. For the first time, wrestler John Otarski thought of building such a simulator. This is what the athlete decided that such a simple device would be suitable for improving grip strength. And he was right. If you can hold this projectile in your hands for a long enough time, then your grip strength will improve significantly. With such a simulator you can always exercise at home.

Finger grip (Pinch force): Holding an object (such as a glass of water) in your fingers is a finger grip. The finger grip differs from others in the degree of involvement of the thumb. He practically does not participate in the “squeezing” grip. Weak thumbs weaken your grip and prevent your forearms from developing to their full potential. The finger grip is also unique in that it can be trained statically (isometrically). Exercises: The simplest and most effective way to develop a finger grip is to take (with your fingers, of course) two 5-10 kg plates, tear them off the floor and hold them for a while. The simplest exercise for developing pinch strength is to lift and hold a disc from a barbell in the fingers of each hand. Some may think this is a very simple exercise. But, in fact, you just have to try, and you will understand that you were deeply mistaken. Even with strong hands, at first it is difficult for a person to hold the load in just his fingers for a long time. Therefore, it is worth starting with five-kilogram discs, gradually increasing their weight and duration of retention. As you understand, there are absolutely no limits to such an exercise. You can do it year after year, getting one hundred percent effect. But make sure that you lift the disk by the hole with only your fingers. The discs you use for such training should not have a rim. With discs, you can perform a heavy single or simply time the maximum time you can hold the weight in your fingers.

Power grip. A power grip is a type of grip that shows how much weight you can lift or hold. A classic exercise that is even included in strength competition programs is called the “farmer’s walk.” Take your two heaviest dumbbells and walk with them. You can train your power grip at home. Everything is very simple: take a bucket, pour half of it with sand (pebbles or nails). Then you wrap the handle of the bucket with a rag, and clamp the two ends of this rag with pliers. Take the pliers (with one hand, of course) and lift the bucket off the ground. Place the barbell in the racks at about knee height, then grab it by the middle of the bar with one hand, lift it, and hold it as long as you can.

Wrist strength. Another function of our wrists that is not entirely related to grip is flexion and extension of the wrists. You can often feel how, when doing biceps curls, at the end of the approach the hand does not hold, it just falls off. This can be observed when doing bench or standing presses; when lifting a barbell, the hand shakes straight out, not allowing you to concentrate on the exercise. This means that in order to avoid such problems, you need to train the flexors and extensors of the hand. Bodybuilders use exercises called wrist flexion or extension. The most common form of execution is when the forearms lie on something like a bench or on the thighs. Although it is believed that one of the most effective exercises is winding a rope with weight around a stick. Forward and reverse grip wrist curls are, of course, excellent exercises. The traditional way of performing them involves bending the elbows, after which the forearms are “placed” either on the hips or on the bench. Meanwhile, it is much more effective to do wrist flexions with straight arms - in this position, the flexors and extensors of the forearms are activated. For example, to develop hand strength, you can also use barbells and dumbbells with a thick bar. Thanks to the thick bar, any exercise is much more difficult to perform. That is, if you work with a regular barbell, then your hands receive much less load, and therefore there is no need to strain your muscles too much. But after six to eight approaches with a thick bar, the athlete will definitely feel an unprecedented load and tension in the muscles.

Training program

Do it twice a week.

Hanging on the horizontal bar with two hands. Bring to 3 minutes.

After that, hanging on one hand. Bring to 1 one minute for each hand.

Dumbbells. Endless. We change hands alternately. We start with the exercise with the left hand. Raise dumbbells 50 times with an overhand grip. Changed hand. Change to an underhand grip 50 times. And a hammer grip (dumbbells perpendicular to the ground) -50 times.

Balancing on hands. Arm balance uses the arms and hands to a much greater extent than when lifting weights and, more importantly, the arm muscles and grip work in very unusual ways that they may not be used in normal weight lifting. If you haven't done handstands before, you'll quickly feel more pressure on your wrists, but over time your hands will become stronger. If you are able, you can also do push-ups from the floor in this position.

Rope to strengthen your grip. The rope is one of the best exercises for developing your grip. It is advisable that it is not a school one 3cm in diameter, but a professional one - 6cm in diameter. You need to climb a rope without legs. The highest class is rope climbing with one hand, but for this, naturally, you first need to learn how to pull yourself up with one hand.

Tennis balls to strengthen your hands. Using tennis balls you can train your hands, grip and fingers. The following exercises can be distinguished: 1) Statics with all fingers. This exercise is especially useful for arm wrestlers. 2) Pressing with four fingers. 3) Pressing with your thumb. We pump up the thumb for a pinch grip. 4) Squeezing the ball with the palms of both hands. If the ball breaks while performing this exercise, it means you have a lot of strength.

Pinch - holding your weight. This is a truly powerful exercise for developing your pinch grip. You need to find a place where you can hang onto 4-6cm thick boards using only your pinch grip. In order to estimate the difficulty of performing this exercise, divide your body weight by 2 and get the result that you should lift with one hand.

Don't forget about the benefits of grip in everyday life. Because a big bench press, for example, is practically not needed in everyday life. And strong fingers will definitely come in handy. A powerful handshake will also not be superfluous - it will make you respect and envy.

So let's look at the top ten exercises to increase your grip strength.

1. Tennis balls to strengthen your hands

Using tennis balls you can train your hands, grip and fingers. The following exercises can be distinguished:

1. Static with all fingers (squeeze and wait until the hand “falls off”). This exercise is especially useful for arm wrestlers.
2. Pressing with four fingers.
3. Pressing with the thumb. The exercise pumps up the thumb for a pinch grip.
4. Squeezing the ball with the palms of both hands. If the ball breaks while doing this exercise, then you are a strong guy.

2. Rope to strengthen your grip

Rope climbing is one of the best exercises for developing your grip. It is advisable that it is not a school one - 3 cm in diameter, but a professional one - 6 cm in diameter. You need to climb a rope without legs. The highest class is one-arm rope climbing. But to do this, naturally, you first need to learn how to do one-arm pull-ups.

If you don’t know how to do pull-ups at all, learn according to the instructions in the following video:

3. Hand expanders

Undeniably, wrist expanders are a wonderful thing for developing hands, and strong hands start with strong hands. Are there different types of expanders? How to choose the right one? Buy one that you can squeeze all the way 5-10 times.

4. Holding the pancakes

Take the pancake by the edge with your fingers and try to hold it for as long as possible. Start with 5-10 kg, and increase the load as necessary. This exercise develops your finger grip.

5. Reverse Kettlebell Exit

Reverse exercises with kettlebells are useful because they strengthen not only the hands and forearms, but also the fingers. This exercise is performed in almost the same way as regular lifts of a weight over your head, but only with the bottom up.

For more interesting and wrestling exercises with kettlebells, watch the following video:

6. Hanging on the horizontal bar

Hanging on the horizontal bar strengthens your grip. The more you pull yourself up, the stronger your hands become. To strengthen your hands and grip, it is advisable to do pull-ups on a thick bar or holding on with 2-3 fingers.

When exercising on a rowing machine, horizontal bar or with a barbell, your results primarily depend on the strength of your grip. You, of course, have never thought about this. Perhaps your attention is simply focused on large muscle groups - chest, back, hips, legs - because these are the key muscles that help you push and pull things better than you previously could. The tendency is for forearm musculature to be perceived as an afterthought, but if your grip strength is subpar, you can forget about improving your performance and can prepare to have your name in the basement of the honor roll.

“Most of us think we have enough grip strength until one day we find ourselves lacking,” says Aush Chatman, trainer and owner of CrossFit San Diego (crossfitsandiego.com). “Most often this discovery occurs on the pull-up bar, but the truth is that lack of grip strength can become a limiting factor for a number of other activities and a weak link for a number of exercises.”

What's a real CrossFitter to do? We agree that you must rid yourself of every possible weakness, real or imagined, and become the bulletproof, fire-breathing monster you were born to be. But to do this, you must make your grip an advantage, not a weakness.

“Improving your grip strength can make you 75% more productive as a CrossFit athlete,” says Chatman. “If you write down all the exercises you do in CrossFit and isolate the ones that help improve your grip strength, you'll see that it's 75%. all exercises and most of them are basic. What other exercises can help besides those we already use? There are not many of them."

Before your mind paints a sad picture of you doing barbell curls in the gym, let's look at the basic functions of the grip. “The first thing you need to understand is what grip strength is,” says Chatman. “There is grip force, which is when you squeeze something in your hand. There is a holding force that is constantly at work, helping you to hold on to something. And there is the sliver force, which allows you to hold or squeeze something with your fingers. The first two forces are constantly used by CrossFitters, the third is much less common.”

Chatman cites a number of barbell exercises, ring exercises, parallel bars, and kettlebell walking as examples of the use of the pinch grip and its importance. “But arm strength is also important in balance exercises like handstands,” he says. - “To be successful at handstands is to be able to engage your arm flexors and extensors while rocking slightly. That is, so that you don’t use your shoulders, core, hips and legs when balancing.”

However, Chatman cautions against trying to make grip strength your sole focus, as other aspects of grip are just as important. “There are a lot of small muscles and they're all important, so endurance is extremely important,” says Chatman. “This is especially true for CrossFit, where you can hang on the bar for a long stretch and then move straight to barbell exercises or rope climbing.”

Ready, attention, grab!

So, I think it's clear to you that grip strength is important. But where to get it and how to develop it? “In my opinion, a CrossFitter doesn't need any special grip strengthening exercises as long as they're performing the deadlifts and pull-ups correctly,” states Chatman. “To me, this means that you can do 4-5 strict pull-ups and deadlifts with the same weight as you or one and a half times more.” This allows you to ensure that your grip does not interfere with the development of other strength exercises. But once you feel like it's time to develop your grip strength, here are a number of tools for this. But go slow, CrossFit doesn't require much compression strength. “Start by developing support strength, then develop finger strength (pinch strength), and then, if you're interested, develop grip strength,” says Chatman.

Expander

Your grip is strongest when your palm is clenched into a fist. And when your hand is unclenched, your grip becomes weaker. So, if you don't train your grip in the unclenched state, then your grip can weaken your overall effectiveness.

Training: After a week, perform deadlifts using a 2-inch thick bar. If your gym doesn’t have this, you can wrap a towel. Start with a weight that is slightly less than your working 10-rep max and aim for 10 reps with it. You can also do this with one arm using kettlebells or dumbbells. Weight walking can also be done in the same way.

Expander

An expander, whether it is made of plastic or metal, is a fairly simple thing. Grab, squeeze, release. This works well if you want to impress in the gym, but if you want to develop grip strength, you'll have to put in more effort.

Training: Find a resistance band that is too tight for you. Make five attempts to squeeze it with each hand. Then turn it over and repeat a series of five more attempts. Then do the opposite exercise - close the expander with both hands, then release one hand, and try to resist opening it with the other for as long as possible. Do three of these reverse exercises with each arm. Repeat these exercises once or twice a week.

Pinch strength

How strong are your fingers? You can find out. What's really cool about CrossFit is that you can do things that other people can't do. Power-ups and handstand push-ups are impressive displays of fitness. So is carrying two, three or even four plates using a finger grip.

Training: Place two identical pancakes with the flat side facing out. If you're new to finger grip training, start with two five-pound (2 kg) weights. Sit down, grab the plates and lift them using only your fingers. Rise up with the plates, then lower back down. Do three to four sets, five to six repetitions with each hand.

A Balanced Grip Approach

All aspects must be in balance with each other. A CrossFitter is nothing if he does not strive to get rid of any sign of weakness. But in a sport where so much depends on pushing, squeezing and holding implements, why don't we also train a Hulk-like grip? Follow the tips outlined here and you will be able to achieve better positions on the honor board.

Balance your brute strength

Don't ignore your forearm extensors in the race for a strong grip. “Most grip strength exercises only target the flexors, so make sure you do exercises that target the extensors as well,” reminds Osh Chatman. “Stretching rubber bracelets with your fingers or squeezing your palms in a bucket of rice works great. So when you go to any CrossFit competition this month where they're giving out these free bands, get yourself some and start using them."