How to Improve Your Grip Strength

Grip strength is not simply handed strength. It measures how much power you create with your hand muscles and forearms. It is also a good indicator of the upper body and overall strength because to increase muscular strength. You need to be able to hold weights. Strong grip strength includes all the muscles from the elbow to the fingertips. As you move down, the grip muscles go through the forearms, wrists, hands, fingers, thumbs, and back of the forearms. When you train the lower arm, you should remember to train all of these muscles to maintain a balance between antagonistic muscle groups such as flexors and extensors. There are many cases of inflammation-related forearm pain, for example, tendinosis and epicondylitis, that can appear from improper training of the forearm muscles or neglecting certain muscle groups or movement patterns. Let’s see how to build grip strength in this article.

Pull up with a Towel

You can also use a towel as a grip strengthener. It will help to create tight and dynamic grip surfaces. You can try to perform pull-up with a towel. First, throw a towel over a crossbar. Second, do the pull-ups. Third, attach it to a cable machine for rowing and pull-ups. Also, you can wrap it around a kettlebell if you want more dynamic and metabolic method of grip training.

Dead Hang for Grip Strength

How to get better grip strength with a «Dead hang» exercise? If you have a bar or a chin-up bar, try to make dead hangs or pull-ups in a prone position to increase grip strength. Hang from the bar with your body and arms extended in a supine position for as long as possible. At the same time, try to retract your shoulder blades to pull your shoulders down and back away from your ears. If it is too easy, do pull-ups on the bar for 20-30 seconds. The Main dead hang benefits is that you can always reach better grip strength by using additional weight. 

Increase your Grip Strength with an Additional Weight

You can always add weight to exercises to increase your grip strength. Add weight gradually, don’t lift big weight at the beginning. Be very careful not to harm yourself.

Farmer’s Walks

One of the easiest ways to increase grip strength is that exercise. Great news: you can use any equipment or object for performing a farmer’s walk. Walking for as long as possible while carrying the weight is necessary. Take a heavy kettlebell in one hand with arms down at your sides, then walk forward in a straight line. Don’t let the kettlebell hit the side of your leg. Continue for 40-60 seconds. Rest for 40-60 seconds, then repeat. Perform this exercise in three to five sets.

Plate curls

How to make your grip even stronger? Grasp the edge of the 25-pound plate with your thumb and support it with your palm and straight fingers. Slowly try to perform a twisting motion with the plate. Please, pay attention to not bending your wrist and fingers under pressure. This is one of the easiest methods of grip training but, at the same time, one of the most difficult.

Plate pinches

Choose two or more plates of equal size and take one in each hand between your thumb and ring finger, hands at your sides. Squeeze the plates as hard as you can and hold them for about one minute. Rest for 40-60 seconds. Common combinations include four tens, 2-25, and 7 fives. You have an excellent grip if you can squeeze five tens, 2-35, or 8 fives. You have world-class if you can squeeze six tens, 2-45, or 3-25. Perform three or four sets.

Reverse Push-Up

Backward-facing push-ups are one more exercise to improve grip strength. Reverse push-ups build upper-body strength. This push-up variation builds strength in your forearms, triceps, deltoids, core, and pectoral muscles when performed properly and regularly. Place your hands behind you on a bench or sturdy chair. Lower yourself until your arms are almost parallel to the floor. Do push-ups until your arms are straight again. Then repeat the movement.

Press-Ups – fingers only (advanced level only)

As you see from the designation, this exercise is a little tricky, but if mastered, it’s a perfect way to strengthen your grip and improve the strength of your fingers, wrists, and forearms. Get into a push-up position. Put your hands shoulder-width apart. Lift on your fingertips. Lower your body until your chest is a centimeter off the ground, then rise sharply upward. Repeat 8-10 times.

Conclusion

What are the benefits of hand grip exercises? You should strive to have a strong grip for many reasons. Let’s look at them closely:

1. Better endurance. When your hands and lower arms are strong, you can perform more reps per exercise set, burning more calories, losing more fat, and building more muscle.
2. Better quality of life in the future. Studies have shown that grip strength is a reliable indicator of the quality of life in old age.
3. A firm handshake. Psychologists say that when you shake a person’s hand firmly in return, it makes a person seem more confident, trustworthy, and credible. And if you shake hands with the proverbial “dead fish,” you lose credibility and may even come across as sly and weak.
4. Better resistance to injury. Muscles and connective tissues that are strengthened are more resistant to injury, and if an injury does occur, the stronger tissues usually recover faster to get you back on track.
5. Big lifts. You can lift heavier weights in the gym when you have a strong grip. It will help you improve your training results by increasing your strength.

We’ve learned that grip strength exercises involve much more than just using the hands and how good a strong grip is. Please, consult the doctor before performing any exercises.