5 Strategies for Developing Massive Grip Strength, No Matter Your Hand Size

5 Strategies for Developing Massive Grip Strength, No Matter Your Hand Size

Body levers can play a pretty big role in what we naturally excel at. For example, people with long arms are likely to be particularly good at throwing, rowing, martial arts, and racket sports. Taller people generally have a height advantage in basketball and volleyball. Tall, heavy people can generally lift heavy weights, demonstrate impressive grip strength, and perform well in strongman and Scottish athletics.

And then there are people like me. I'm short, I'm light and I don't have particularly long limbs. But damn, I want the winnings. I love strongman and other feats of strength, which definitely favor people who are far less T-Rex-after-through-the-dryer than I am.

So what’s a little person to do?

Here's the good news: If you're short, lifting things will generally be easier. When an object has to travel a shorter distance, much less work is required. When you're low to the ground, deadlifts become much easier.

Shorter arms mean super-efficient pressing – hello, bench press and overhead press! Short legs generally mean an easier squat. What if you have short arms and a lighter body? You'll probably be better at pull-ups than the average bear. Since many of the standard lifts are more efficient for us smaller folks, it can become much easier for us to become very strong, pound for pound.

But here's where we can lose: grip strength. If you can't hold on to the bar, the elevator won't pass. For every lifter, grip strength is the limiting factor in many movements. If your hands are smaller, they won't wrap around the bar quite as well as those of a lifter with longer fingers, so your chances of losing your grip on your lifter are generally higher.

THE SOLUTION FOR A STRONGER GRIP

I'm a big proponent of training the weakest link, and especially for Team Tiny Hands, the grip is probably a detrimental disadvantage for most of us. However, not all hope for lifting heavy objects is lost. The following proven methods for building an iron grip will help you support the big lifts you're prepared for.

• Training mit dicken Balken
  Je dicker die Stange, desto schwieriger ist es, sich daran festzuhalten, und zu lernen, wie man mit einer dicken Stange umgeht, kann zu einem viel solideren Halt an einer Standardstange führen. Das Training mit dicken Stangen kann die Griffstärke verbessern – und es gibt viele Möglichkeiten, den Umfang einer Stange zu vergrößern – Der Durchmesser beträgt im Allgemeinen 50 mm, fast das Doppelte eines 25 mm bis 28 mm Durchmessers einer Standard-Olympiahantel.

  If you want to keep it simple, you can invest in a pair of Fat Gripz, which simply clip onto a regular barbell and add different grip widths. Even easier is to wrap a washcloth or towel around the areas you want to grab. The more the cloth wraps around the pole, the thicker the gripping area becomes.

  Since training with thick bars is a much less efficient way to hold on to a bar, you simply won't be able to pull as much weight as you could with a standard bar. Therefore, it is important to include thick bar training as a componentaddition to,and not a replacement for heavy barbell training. In fact, one study showed that those who trained with Fat Gripz had their forearm and deltoid muscles working overtime during deadlifts, pull-ups, and bent-over rows.However, the activity of the upper arm muscles decreased significantly compared to performing these movements without the thick bar. Get the best of both worlds – don’t neglect the heavy stuff!

• Kreuzheben im Obergriff

  Only keep the mixed grip when you can no longer pick up the bar with an overhand grip. This is a great way to strengthen your hands with big weights and improve your ability to hold on to the bar.

• Probieren Sie schwere Griffe auf Zeit aus

  Holding onto the barbell at the top of a deadlift for about eight to ten seconds can help build grip endurance and strength, and can teach your body how to sustain that weight for extended periods of time. Exercises like farmer's carries and heavy shrugs can similarly condition your grip.

• Teller drängt nach Zeit

  Try gripping two weight plates, ideally with smooth backs. Hold the plates together between your fingers and thumb, smooth side facing out. You can do this one-handed or two-handed, and you can also do loaded transports this way. This is a fantastic way to improve your pinch grip strength and your thumb's ability to stabilize a weight.

• Handgelenkstraining
  Wenn Sie im Allgemeinen eine kleinere Person sind, sind Ihre Handgelenke wahrscheinlich auch eher klein. Die Verbesserung der Kraft und Stabilität des Handgelenks führt zu stärkeren Unterarmen und stabilerem, kraftvollerem Drücken und Heben. Handgelenk-Curls, sowohl in Bauch- als auch in Rückenlage, und Handgelenksrollen sind äußerst nützliche Werkzeuge für den Aufbau von Handgelenkskraft. Allerdings vergessen wir oft, dass sich das Handgelenk in mehr Richtungen als nur auf und ab bewegt. Yo-Yo-Rollen sind ein hervorragendes Werkzeug, um die seitlichen Bewegungen des Handgelenks zu trainieren, während das Hebeln und Drehen mit dem Vorschlaghammer eine großartige Möglichkeit ist, die Kraft des Handgelenks bei ungewöhnlichen Winkeln und Hebeln aufzubauen.

The best way to get better at lifting heavy weights is to start lifting heavy weights. But improving grip strength can give us shorter folks—and everyone else, really—the ability to handle more weight more confidently, build some serious forearm muscle, and make those gains more effectively than ever before.

Melody Schoenfeld, CSCS, is an award-winning trainer, international speaker and coach. Schoenfeld is also co-author (with Lee Boyce) of the recently publishedStrength Training for All Body Types: The Science of Lifting and Levers.
She can be found on social media: @5ftoffury1